Inserting non-standard characters in Word using ALT-number pad

A while back I wrote a couple of articles about inserting non-keyboard symbols in Word using the Insert Symbol function, and also by using some default shortcuts.

Now we get onto the real voodoo - using ALT and the number pad to produce some non-standard characters. You do have a number pad, don't you? That was one of the essential features I insisted on when I got my Toshiba laptop - unless you REALLY need high portability, you ARE going to miss the number pad at times...

How to use ALT and the number pad to produce non-keyboard characters
All the characters you need CAN be inserted into your document using the Insert Symbol function in Word - say the ² (squared) symbol, the µ (Mu or micro) symbol, or the ¼ and other basic fractions. But what if you use them frequently? You don't want to have to go into Insert symbol every time.

Well, this is how you do it: first go into Insert symbol and select one of the above-mentioned symbols (this is by way of example - not all the symbols are inserted this way, so choose one of those for now). Click on the symbol once, say µ . At the bottom it says: Shortcut key: Alt+0181. What's that all about?

It means:

1) Make sure the NUM LOCK light is lit on your keyboard - if not, press it once to activate the number keypad
2) Press the LEFT "ALT" key (it doesn't work with the right!) and hold it down.
3) While still holding the left ALT key, type 0181 in sequence on the number pad (it only works on the keypad too!)
4) Let go of the ALT key and... the µ symbol magically appears!

Other ALT codes
Many other symbols have these codes, and believe it or not, you CAN learn these by heart if you use them fairly regularly - you don't want to have to go back to Insert symbol every time, after all, that would defeat the object somewhat! I have a number of these codes that I use without thinking, such as the „ and ” I need in Serbian - you can't get those via the keyboard.

Here are a few more symbol ALT codes:

½ (half symbol) - ALT+0189
¾ (three-quarters symbol) - ALT+0190
÷ (division sign) - ALT+0247
† (dagger) - ALT+0134
§ (section) - ALT+0167
± (plus-minus) - ALT+0177
¥ (Yen) - ALT+0165

Oh, and I'll let you into a little secret! These shortcuts are not exclusive to Word - in fact they work in all Microsoft and most Windows programs. In fact, I used them to type the symbols here.

Thanks for tuning in to Word Tips World again, and for letting us into your inbox if you are an email subscriber. Stay tuned, for one more bit of symbol-inserting voodoo, coming soon!

Inserting symbols in Word, continued

Recently I wrote about inserting symbols in Word using the Insert symbol function. I also mentioned that there are keyboard shortcuts for some common symbols, like © (copyright symbol) (ALT+CTRL+C) and it's well worth learning them, it can really save you some time! Here are a few more:

® (registered trademark symbol) - ALT+CTRL+R
¢ (cent symbol) - bit more tricky, hold CTRL and press /, then press c whilst still holding CTRL!
° (degree symbol) - hold CTRL and press @, then press space

By the way, these can depend on what keyboard you have - mine is not an English one, so to get @ I have to press shift too!

But we still haven't got onto those symbols that are inserted with ALT+xxxx (a four digit number) - we'll leave that for next time!

How do I convert a PDF to a Word document?

In my translation business I often get PDF files which the customer wants translated and returned identically-formatted. The only way I can do this (partly because of the software we use to help us in translation) is to somehow convert the file to Word format and do the editing/translating there, and then convert back to PDF if necessary.

You probably have a similar situation, where you have a PDF file that you need to convert into a Word file so you can then continue editing the document in Word for whatever reason, and you want formatting preserved.

I have decided to test VeryPDF's PDF to Word software, one of the solutions that are out there for converting PDF files into Word documents, and see how well a product like this really works.



What I decided to do was get a PDF file and try converting it with PDF to Word to see if it really does the job. I opted for a really exciting document, the British Government's SA-100 tax form, which is full of nice formatting which ought to trip up the program. Here is a snapshot of the file (this is from page 2, click for full size):



The easy way
Of course, you could just open the file in Adobe Reader and copy/paste the text into Word. So let's try that.

You basically get an unformatted text file, like so (click for full size):


As you can see, it's next to useless - there is no formatting preserved and you would have a real job trying to reconstruct the original document from this.

Now, if Adobe Reader had an option like Save As -> Word Document... That would be nice, but they want you to buy the full Acrobat software for that, costing 100's of dollars! And having used it in the past, I was not overly impressed with its export to Word function, though this may have improved.

The VeryPDF way
I downloaded trial versions of several PDF converter programs, and they all did the job fairly well, but I eventually decided to demonstrate VeryPDF's, mainly because it offers a fairly generous trial period - 99 tries and only a 5-page limitation in trial mode. Some of the other programs (such as this one) seemed to do a good job, but obfuscated the results with asterisks and stuff. I understand they need to do to ensure sales of the full version, but it was very annoying and did not allow me to properly trial the program. VeryPDF's PDF to Word software is very easy to use so I won't go into details - all you have to do is select the source PDF and name the target Word file and in a few minutes the job is finished. And here is the result (yes, this is a screenshot of the resulting Word file!):


I am impressed - I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that good! I expected some bits of the PDF to be converted to graphical elements in Word but they were not - every bit of the text is editable, as far as I can see. And the actual formatting is perfect. The only issue is the main font, where it didn't use a sans-serif font. I guess this is because the font was not a standard Windows one, and this little glitch may be fixable through the options, though I couldn't find anything like that.

Also, of course, the results would be a lot different if the document contained scanned text. I can't show you the results of this because I tried it on a confidential document, but you should know that this program does not appear to OCR text that is in the form of a bitmap.

All in all though, these are small niggles and I was most impressed with this program. I will have to seriously consider buying the full version as it could give me a huge competitive advantage to be able to supply the customer with a translated AND fully-formatted Word/PDF document. At only $35, the product would pay for itself very quickly

Buy the PDF to Word converter here.

Symbols in Word

OK, reaaaaally simple, but it's amazing how many people do not know this. You often have a situation in word where you want to use a symbol that is not represented on the keyboard. For example ¥ (Japanese Yen), © (copyright) or µ (Greek symbol micro-).

There ARE keyboard shortcuts to get these symbols, but your first port of call will probably be the insert symbol function (just go to Insert and choose Symbol).

You will be offered this grid of symbols which are contained within the font you are currently using, though you can choose another font from the drop-down menu, e.g. one of those Dingbats type fonts:

Just double-click on the symbol you want and it will appear in your text at the current cursor position. You can also see the list of recently-used symbols below the main grid, which will probably be a quicker way to find the symbol you are looking for.

Symbols Shortcut Key
You will also notice that you can define a shortcut key by pressing the button that says... shortcut key! But most of the major symbols already have a predefined shortcut key. For example, the copyright symbol is inserted by pressing ALT+CTRL+C. However, in this example, the Yen symbol is inserted by pressing a strange looking combination, ALT+0165. If you don't know what this refers to, then stick around because we will give you a quick explanation in a future article.

Happy symbol-inserting..!

Using speech recognition in Word

WORKING speech recognition in Windows, with Dragon NaturallySpeaking! Buy now!

I have to briefly rave about this discovery, even though it's not directly related to Microsoft Word! Just watch the video and you will get the gist of it!

Must be a trick!
Amazing, huh? Now, I have been using this product, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 by Nuance, mostly in Microsoft Word, for a couple of weeks now, so I can give you a quick low-down.

Well, in short, it really does work just like in the clip! Okay, so the people you see in the video are quite proficient in using the program, but the speech recognition really does work that quickly and accurately! It has really revolutionised my use of Microsoft Word - I'm involved in the translation business and for us, time, or rather typing speed, really is money. But there is an upper limit to how fast anyone can type, especially if they are a translator, since translators are not usually professional typists. Even for those who do type quite fast, like me, the hours per day we need to spend typing at high speed really do take their toll on our finger joints.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking has drastically reduced the amount of typing I need to do and now my most common bottleneck is the actual thought process involved in writing text, rather than the limit imposed by typing speed, which is how it should be!


What's the catch?
Of course there are downsides. Although Dragon NaturallySpeaking has an exceptional dictionary, it cannot possibly cater for all possible proper nouns that one might wish to type. So for example in a historical text, you are likely to encounter the names of people, places and events which DNS simply can't cope with. You will probably need to enter those manually, though you can program in new words, which DNS then recognizes perfectly. It's just a question of whether you feel it's worth taking a few seconds (it's that quick) to train the new word, or just type it the few times it appears.

Obviously, although you can talk very quickly when using the program, you do have to enunciate quite clearly, and any time you stumble over a word (which is quite often in my case) DNS gets confused. Also, I have a cold at the moment, and this has slightly affected accuracy!

Conclusion
This is not intended to be a full-blown review, I just want to open up the possibility to you of using a speech recognition program such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Maybe you tried this program, as I did, a few years ago, and weren't very impressed. Now all I can say is, buy a decent microphone, make sure you do some of the training routines after installation, so that the programme is calibrated to your voice, and give it another try! I think you will be blown away!

For the first time, it really occurs to me that we could be seeing the beginning of the end of the keyboard as a practical data entry device! I have no hesitation in recommending this amazing software, and at $160 for the standard version, it is a bargain! In my job, the increase in productivity that it brings means it could pay for itself in less than a week!

Now you just have to think about how you are going to keep the people around you quiet while you are trying to type, or rather speak!

P.S. Oh, I forgot to mention, this whole article was written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. With the exception of a few minor corrections and alterations, the entire text was spoken by me and recognized by DNS.

P.P.S. There are several versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Standard, Preferred and Professional. Preferred is the most popular, and the one you will probably go for. Standard is a somewhat slimmed down version that seems to be intended for family use, while Professional is a fully featured, quite expensive version, with advanced scripting facilities which you would need to know why you need. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a demo version, but I believe on-site demonstrations are available for potential corporate customers.

How do I get rid of "limited menus" in Word?

This is a real pain in the neck and I thoroughly recommend this be the first option you change when installing Word 2003 for the first time (no longer applies to Word 2007).

You know what I am referring to? The drop-down menus like File, Edit, View etc. are abbreviated by default - set to only show SOME of the options on them, with a chevron at the bottom to show FULL options:


Somehow, this is supposed to HELP you, by not overwhelming you with options and only showing the ones you use most often. Trouble is, it never seems to show quite the ones you need, so you are forever having to click the "more" chevrons to get the rest of the options. Unless you are a total beginner in Word, this is just a pain in the neck.

To turn this off, right-click the mouse somewhere on the drop-down menu bar (i.e. where it says File, Edit etc.) and then choose the Customize option at the bottom. Choose the tab, and there you will find an option Always show full menus. Tick this, and Bob's your uncle! You will always be presented with ALL drop-down menu options and you need never be patronised by Word again. Erm...

Highlight whole document from or to a certain point

OK - another tip about highlighting using the keyboard in Microsoft Word (and other Windows applications). This is really handy!

So you need to highlight (i.e. mark for some subsequent purpose, like copy/paste or something) some of a document, which is maybe 500 pages long. You only want to mark the first, say, 240 pages, or the last 110 pages. What do you do, position the mouse at page 240, and move it up the screen, scrolling through all 240 pages until you have marked the whole document? Do you know how long that can take?! I know you know, because we've all done it! It could take HOURS of scrolling! There is a MUCH simpler and quicker way.

Scenario 1
I want to mark the first 240 pages in my 500 page document. I move the mouse pointer to the point TO which I want to mark my document, somewhere on the 240th page, and left click to position the cursor. Then I press:

CTRL+SHIFT+...guess what? HOME

and voila! My whole document is marked, from the top right down to page 240. And it took about 14 milliseconds, not 14 minutes!


Scenario 2
I want to mark the last 110 pages of my 500-page document. Instead of starting at page 390, and scrolling laboriously down for minutes on end, I simply go to the page from WHERE I want to start and press (now I just know you've guess it already):

CTRL+SHIFT+END

...and suddenly the last 110 pages are highlighted and ready for whatever it is you want to do with them!

Don't make it difficult for yourself! Keep reading Word Tips World for more of the same! Or just buy a copy of Office for Dummies (see above) if you can't be bothered!