[grammatim[_2_]]

I think the youngster (I'm 57) was asking what "PITA" means, and it
ain't Middle Eastern bread.

On Apr 28, 1:57*pm, "Jay Freedman" wrote:
Well, young lady, I'm 61, though my eyesight has actually improved since
last year's cataract surgery. Be that as it may, you don't need to have the
Styles pane open to apply a style. You can assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
Go to Office button Word Options Customize, click the Keyboard Customize
button, select the Styles category and the name of the character style, and
assign a shortcut. For instance, Ctrl+Alt+B is usually available. (This is
the 2007 version of the procedure athttp://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AsgnCmdOrMacroToHotkey.htm.)

Also, you don't have to have the whole ribbon taking up space all the time.
Ctrl+F1 hides and unhides it, or you can double-click any of the tabs across
the top. While it's minimized, single-click any tab to choose one command
from it, and then it will hide again.

If you apply a style and the whole document changes, there's a setting you
need to turn off. Readhttp://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WholeDocumentReformatted.htm.

What I meant about searching is this: In the Find dialog you can click More
* Format Font and choose a color to search for, and it should find any
text that has that color. If you open a document from Word 2003 or earlier
that contains blue text created in the older version, it will be RGB
0-0-255. In Word 2007, when you select the blue patch in the palette as the
color to search for, it will be the new blue, RGB 0-112-192. That will cause
the match to fail, and the search won't find anything. You'd have to go into
the More Colors dialog and specify 0-0-255 instead. Worse, if you (or more
likely I) program a macro to search for blue text, the result may depend on
which version of Word assigned the font color. That's a PITA.



Crystal wrote:
Mr. Freedman, thank you very much, I really appreciate such a
complete and gracious answer. *Again, I apologize if I sound snippy,
I don't mean to, but it is frustrating when one gets used to doing
work a certain way and then all familiar options are yanked away and
one must find totally new options that don't seem to work as well.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you meant in the paragraph about
PITA, can you explain that a little further?

When I try to choose a different Theme in an existing document, the
option is grayed out and can't be selected. *When I open a new blank
document, the Theme option becomes available to be selected again.
Is there a checkbox I need to change or something?

Thank you for telling me about Shift F-5 working in a document that I
haven't closed yet. That is helpful. *Maybe I can just lock my
computer at night and not close out of the documents I'm working on,
but I think our system is taken offline during the night, which would
prompt a reboot the next morning anyway. *I try to remember to add my
own bookmark before closing a document and can then Go To that
bookmark but sometimes forget.

I will try your suggestion to use Styles. *However, just to add my
2¢, *one of the many reasons I don't use Styles is because of having
the style window open. You are probably a younger man with good
vision, but I'm 52 and my eyesight is not what it once was. *I refuse
to have my screen resolution set to microscopic. *I have a hard time
seeing most of the dinky screens, such as this reply window, and have
to enlarge them. Thanks heavens I found Control+Scroll! *In Word
2007, if I have the ribbon open, ONE-THIRD *of my screen is taken up.
If I also have the style window, or clipboard window, or clipart
window, etc., *open, that's another big chunk of my document that I
can't see. *Also, as I told Suzanne Barnhill, I don't know of anyone
who uses or likes Styles -- they are not user friendly and whenever I
try to use one it makes unintended changes that I didn't want. *I'm
sure the programmers had good intentions with creating them but the
only people I know of who are fans of styles are instructors -- not
the people who have to apply them in the real world.

"Jay Freedman" wrote:

Hi Crystal,

While I sympathize with your frustrations, my answer is going to be
quite similar to Suzanne's -- the only way to store a custom font
color between Word sessions is to create a character style that
includes that color, and apply that style to each word or phrase
that needs it. A character style can include any font formatting you
want; for example, the built-in character style named Emphasis
merely applies italic formatting to whatever is selected. Similarly,
you can define a character style named Blue and make it include just
the pure blue color.

I don't know why the blue in the palette isn't RGB 0-0-255, but it's
a PITA because you can't use "blue" as a search criterion in the
Find dialog if you're dealing with a file from previous versions;
the new blue doesn't match the old one. I suspect that the Office
developers took their mandate to "make it easy to produce
good-looking documents" too literally and enlisted some
arty-designer types to give them a makeover. :-(

There should be no reason you can't change the theme in an existing
document whenever you want. What happens when you try?

The Shift+F5 shortcut still works, but only during the current
session. The problem here was a design oversight: there is no place
in the new .docx format to store the built-in bookmark named
\PrevSel1, which in previous versions was the place the first press
of Shift+F5 would go. The MVPs told Microsoft about this during the
Office 2007 beta, but it was apparently too late to get it fixed. I
hope it's in the bug database to be fixed in the next version.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP * * * *FAQ:http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

Crystal wrote:
Mr. Freedman, I have the same question. *In Word 2007 the font color
palette is just awful. I have documents with black text but want to
be able to choose a different color for an occasional word here and
there. *I want the same color that a hyperlink is (RGB 0-0-255) but
that color is not available on the Word 2007 font color pallette.
When I add that particular color to the palette, it is gone again
when I log off and back on again. *I got a snippy suggestion from
Suzanne Barnhill to use Styles, but I don't see how styles would
apply to changing the color of an occasional word here and there in
a document. *I found themes, but have discovered that a new theme
can only be chosen for a new document, I cannot change to a
different theme with preferred font colors in an existing document.
Can you please pass on a request to the powers that be at Microsoft
to stop limiting what we can do in Word and stop making such
drastic changes with every new incarnation of Word? They are not
making it better, they are making it worse -- and less and less
user friendly. *They seem to have no idea what end users actually
use the program for. *In Word 2007 they have also taken away the
ability to use Shift F-5 to find the most recently edited spot in a
document, so now I have to hunt and seek for the place I left off
editing several days and several documents ago. *How is this
better? * And whoever chose those colors for the font color
pallette in Word 2007 should be fired. *I'm sorry if I sound snippy
-- I don't *mean to, I know it's nothing you have done or have
control over.

"Jay Freedman" wrote:

Technically, a programmer working on the source code could do
anything. However, considering that the source code of Word is
proprietary to Microsoft, the question is meaningless. The
controlling consideration is whether the managers of the Office
division would think it worth the time and expense to make the
change, ensure that it's backwardly compatible with older versions,
test that it works in all the various languages, and adequately
test it; and balance that expense against whatever additional
revenue that could be expected because of the change. The phrase "a
snowball's chance" comes to mind.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP * * * *FAQ:http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 17:03:02 -0800, comolake
wrote:

Thank you for the speedy reply!

I suspected this would be the case. *One followup question - Is it
the kind of thing that could be modified by a programmer working
on the source code, by any chance?

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, the colors offered are the only ones available for this
feature. A custom color could be applied to the text, but this
would be direct font formatting.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"comolake" wrote in message
...
I have a colleague who customarily does all pen-and-paper
editing in a "signature" color that is not among the Track
Changes color options. *Is it
possible to change the available palette?

Thanks.-