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  #1   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Monte Hanrahan
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditClear

Ive got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It involves the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by adding a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence, Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period), Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could even make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table, for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click, triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show you or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag & Drop and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know its hard for most of us to remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

Ive recently taken to recommending that students start by using the Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files. They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that method than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select All, that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at the end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph, etc
for their copy or move.

I dont think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....word.newusers
  #2   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Suzanne S. Barnhill
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditClear

Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" Monte wrote in message
...
Ive got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It involves

the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by adding

a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives

additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence,

Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period), Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could even

make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table, for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click,

triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show you

or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is

very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag & Drop

and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know its hard for most of us to

remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

Ive recently taken to recommending that students start by using the Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files. They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that method

than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select All,

that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in

beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at the

end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph, etc
for their copy or move.

I dont think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow

this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.


http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....word.newusers

  #3   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditClear

and most of it can be done with multiple mouse clicks.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" Monte wrote in
message
...
I've got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It involves

the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by
adding

a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives

additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence,

Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period),
Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could even

make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table, for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click,

triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show you

or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is

very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag & Drop

and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know it's hard for most of us to

remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

I've recently taken to recommending that students start by using the Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files. They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that method

than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select All,

that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in

beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at the

end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph,
etc
for their copy or move.

I don't think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow

this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.


http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....word.newusers



  #4   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Monte Hanrahan
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditCl

You didn't read my entire post. I explained my rationale in great detail,
including how "multiple mouse clicks" is a part of the problem.

I deliberately posted this in the NEW USERS forum because it was intended to
solve a problem that new users have. Namely, that they have so many things
to learn at the beginning that it is nice to have Menu items to choose from
instead of simply not knowing the easy way to do something. Im talking
about real beginners, people who would hit the enter key twice at the end of
each line because their term paper is supposed to be double spaced!

The post from Suzanne S. Barnhill mentions that the Edit Menu is going away
in Word 2007 so the whole thing may be moot anyway. I dont know how that is
going to improve the product. Maybe Microsoft wants us to go back to the
Wordstar days where everything was done with arcane ctrl-key combinations,
just supplemented now by arcane mouse click combinations. 20 years ago
everybody had little keyboard templates and cheat sheets taped to their
displays so they could quickly look up how to do all those things they
couldnt remember.


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

and most of it can be done with multiple mouse clicks.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" Monte wrote in
message
...
I've got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It involves

the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by
adding

a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives

additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence,

Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period),
Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could even

make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table, for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click,

triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show you

or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is

very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag & Drop

and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know it's hard for most of us to

remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

I've recently taken to recommending that students start by using the Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files. They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that method

than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select All,

that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in

beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at the

end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph,
etc
for their copy or move.

I don't think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow

this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.


http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....word.newusers




  #5   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Monte Hanrahan
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditCl

Does that mean that Select All will not be on a Menu anywhere? How is that
going to improve the product? What about Clear or Find or Replace or Paste
Special? What mechanism will allow access to current Edit Menu operations?

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" Monte wrote in message
...
Ive got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It involves

the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by adding

a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives

additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence,

Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period), Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could even

make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table, for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click,

triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show you

or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is

very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag & Drop

and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know its hard for most of us to

remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

Ive recently taken to recommending that students start by using the Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files. They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that method

than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select All,

that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in

beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at the

end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph, etc
for their copy or move.

I dont think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow

this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.


http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....word.newusers




  #6   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Bob Buckland ?:-\)
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditClear

Hi Suzanne,

Word does have an 'Editing' group on the 'Home' tab of the ribbon.

Unless you're running a screen at 1280w resolution then the Editing group will appear and act on screen in a manner similar to the
'tiered menus' they removed from the 2007 versions g)

One of the Editing subgroup commands is 'Select'.
"Select" in turn has a subgroup of
'Select All'
'Select Objects'
'Select Text with Similar Formatting'

=======
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ...
Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
--
I hope this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office system products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends


LINKS for the 2007 Office System

1. Read about it, try it, or watch the movie
the 2007 Microsoft Office system iinfo is at
http://microsoft.com/office/preview

2. Already have 2007 Office System Beta 2?
Send Microsoft your feedback (with pictures)
http://sas.office.microsoft.com/

3. Use the 2007 OfficeOnline website without Office2007

a. Install the ActiveX access control
http://office.microsoft.com/search/r...XT101650581033
b. then visit http://officebeta.iponet.net



  #7   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Suzanne S. Barnhill
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditCl

I guess you've been under a rock somewhere? See
http://www.microsoft.com/office/prev.../overview.mspx

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" wrote in message
...
Does that mean that Select All will not be on a Menu anywhere? How is

that
going to improve the product? What about Clear or Find or Replace or

Paste
Special? What mechanism will allow access to current Edit Menu

operations?

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the

newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" Monte wrote in

message
...
Ive got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It

involves
the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by

adding
a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives

additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence,

Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period),

Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could

even
make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table,

for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column,

etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click,

triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these

are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show

you
or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as

well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is

very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag &

Drop
and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know its hard for most of us to

remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

Ive recently taken to recommending that students start by using the

Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files.

They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that

method
than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select

All,
that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in

beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at

the
end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few

spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph,

etc
for their copy or move.

I dont think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper

someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for

that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click

the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,

follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and

then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.



http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....word.newusers



  #8   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Suzanne S. Barnhill
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditClear

That should make Monte happy.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" 75214.226(At Beautiful Downtown)compuserve.com wrote
in message ...
Hi Suzanne,

Word does have an 'Editing' group on the 'Home' tab of the ribbon.

Unless you're running a screen at 1280w resolution then the Editing group

will appear and act on screen in a manner similar to the
'tiered menus' they removed from the 2007 versions g)

One of the Editing subgroup commands is 'Select'.
"Select" in turn has a subgroup of
'Select All'
'Select Objects'
'Select Text with Similar Formatting'

=======
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message

...
Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
--
I hope this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office system products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends


LINKS for the 2007 Office System

1. Read about it, try it, or watch the movie
the 2007 Microsoft Office system iinfo is at
http://microsoft.com/office/preview

2. Already have 2007 Office System Beta 2?
Send Microsoft your feedback (with pictures)
http://sas.office.microsoft.com/

3. Use the 2007 OfficeOnline website without Office2007

a. Install the ActiveX access control
http://office.microsoft.com/search/r...XT101650581033
b. then visit http://officebeta.iponet.net




  #9   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditClear

It adds none of the additional functionality that he was seeking in a menu.
If you were thinking that it was the Select Objects item that Bob mentioned,
that turns the mouse cursor to an arrow to allow you to select drawing
objects etc, like clicking on the arrow on the Drawing toolbar in Word 2003
and before, nothing more.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
That should make Monte happy.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" 75214.226(At Beautiful Downtown)compuserve.com wrote
in message ...
Hi Suzanne,

Word does have an 'Editing' group on the 'Home' tab of the ribbon.

Unless you're running a screen at 1280w resolution then the Editing group

will appear and act on screen in a manner similar to the
'tiered menus' they removed from the 2007 versions g)

One of the Editing subgroup commands is 'Select'.
"Select" in turn has a subgroup of
'Select All'
'Select Objects'
'Select Text with Similar Formatting'

=======
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message

...
Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
--
I hope this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office system products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends


LINKS for the 2007 Office System

1. Read about it, try it, or watch the movie
the 2007 Microsoft Office system iinfo is at
http://microsoft.com/office/preview

2. Already have 2007 Office System Beta 2?
Send Microsoft your feedback (with pictures)
http://sas.office.microsoft.com/

3. Use the 2007 OfficeOnline website without Office2007

a. Install the ActiveX access control
http://office.microsoft.com/search/r...XT101650581033
b. then visit http://officebeta.iponet.net






  #10   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
 
Posts: n/a
Default Change Word EditSelectAll to EditSelectSubMenu like EditCl

There was a time when Word came with keyboard templates that gave all this
sort of information. It's no longer practical to do that because there are
some many variations of keyboard styles that one template would no longer
fit all.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Monte Hanrahan" wrote in message
...
You didn't read my entire post. I explained my rationale in great detail,
including how "multiple mouse clicks" is a part of the problem.

I deliberately posted this in the NEW USERS forum because it was intended
to
solve a problem that new users have. Namely, that they have so many
things
to learn at the beginning that it is nice to have Menu items to choose
from
instead of simply not knowing the easy way to do something. I'm talking
about real beginners, people who would hit the enter key twice at the end
of
each line because their term paper is supposed to be double spaced!

The post from Suzanne S. Barnhill mentions that the Edit Menu is going
away
in Word 2007 so the whole thing may be moot anyway. I don't know how that
is
going to improve the product. Maybe Microsoft wants us to go back to the
Wordstar days where everything was done with arcane ctrl-key combinations,
just supplemented now by arcane mouse click combinations. 20 years ago
everybody had little keyboard templates and cheat sheets taped to their
displays so they could quickly look up how to do all those things they
couldn't remember.


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

and most of it can be done with multiple mouse clicks.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Word 2007 has no Edit menu at all, so this suggestion is unlikely to be
implemented in the way you suggest.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Monte Hanrahan" Monte wrote in
message
...
I've got a suggestion for a minor improvement for MS Word. It
involves
the
Edit Menu Select All choice. You could enhance this menu item by
adding
a
sub-menu (similar to the Clear sub-menu just above it) which gives
additional
choices beyond Select All, such as Select Paragraph, Select Sentence,
Select
Line, Select Word, Select Clause (i.e. from comma to comma/period),
Select
Quote (i.e. "Within quotation marks"), Select Page, etc. You could
even
make
it context sensitive so that if the insertion point was in a table,
for
example, it would change to Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column,
etc.

I realize that there are Mouse shortcuts such as double-click,
triple-click,
ctrl-click, etc. to perform some of these selections. However, these
are
non-intuitive and can be difficult to learn (i.e. someone has to show
you
or
you have to read it somewhere) and also to remember. I realize, as
well,
that there is the use of the click and drag selection process which is
very
intuitive, but can be difficult or clumsy for absolute beginners.

I teach Windows and Office to beginning students and see many of them
struggling with the mouse. They have particular trouble with Drag &
Drop
and
with Dragging to Select Text. I know it's hard for most of us to
remember,
but the mouse takes some practice to get the hang of.

I've recently taken to recommending that students start by using the
Task
Pane in Windows Explorer (in XP only) for copying and moving files.
They
seem to achieve a much more consistent level of success with that
method
than
with Drag & Drop.

It was that, plus the Edit Menu Clear sub-menu just above Select
All,
that
got me thinking about this solution for the problems I observed in
beginners
with selecting text. They often miss the period or Paragraph Mark at
the
end
when selecting sentences or paragraphs or get too many or too few
spaces,
etc. This way they would reliably get a complete sentence, paragraph,
etc
for their copy or move.

I don't think it would clutter up the Edit Menu or unduly hamper
someone
trying to do a Select All. Most people quickly discover Ctrl+A for
that
anyway. This is the only downside that I can see.


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