Click and Type in Word
One of the indispensable but esoteric features of the Word user interface is called "Click and Type."
Click and Type was a feature added to Word 2000 to help make it easier to position text at specific points on the page without needing to hit Enter and Tab a bunch of times to position the cursor manually.
Here's how it works. First, create a new blank document in Word 2000 or later.
Watch your cursor as you move it around the blank page. Depending on the part of the page you are hovering over, you will see a tiny little symbol for left-align, center, or right-align show as part of the cursor.
Whenever you see one of these special cursors, you can double-click to start typing exactly where the cursor is positioned. The miniature alignment icon indicates what kind of text alignment you will get when you start typing.
Generally, when you're near the center of the page, you get center alignment. When you're close to the right margin, you get right alignment. And pretty much everywhere else, you get left alignment.
One of the cool things about this feature is that you can use it to easily create left-aligned, centered, and right-aligned text even within the same line of the document. For example, if you're creating letterhead, you can use Click and Type to put your name in the middle, your phone number on the left side, and your e-mail address on the right side--all within the same line.
Office Online has the full write-up about Click and Type, including pictures of the other more advanced cursors.
Comments
- Anonymous
May 15, 2006
I suspect the cursor shown for right-align is wrong. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
Ahruman suspects correctly. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
Wow, I never knew about this feature... awsome. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
I’m a good suspecter, y’know. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
How'd I never stumble upon that? Sure enough, though...
neat. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
Indeed, never actually known about that simple, yet useful feature! Thanks for showing us the light.
Greets - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
One important factor Jensen didn't mention:
This only works in Page Layout mode (later called Print Layout mode), and not in Normal mode.
Not that anyone uses Normal mode anyway, right? :) - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
If it's so "indispensible" how is it that the vast majority of Word users probably never heard of it, let alone use it?
Answer: it's lost among the other zillions of Word features a/k/a bloatware! - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
Since onone uses the Normal mode, and most people seem to use the Page/Print Layout Mode, perhaps that should be renamed to be the Normal mode? - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
I agree with aidan_walsh, Ahruman indeed is correct :-)
By the way, I use web document mode. I will switch to print layout only in (rare) case I want to actually print something. - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 15, 2006
I must agree with Centaur. This feature falls under the "Cute... now how do I turn it off?" category. Tools - Options - Edit, remove the check next to "Enable click and type". (In Word 2007, you'll find this somewhere else. Currently, Word Options - Advanced - Edit. Once beta 2 is released, this might change.) - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
I've known about this feature ever since Office 2000 came out. However I just never have figured out what good it will serve me. Usally I just open a blank document and double click in random places to see where I can get the cursor to go. Wow, that made me sound like I need a life. But I really do do that, sorry for the misdata on your tapes Jensen, I wasn't really using it for anything useful. - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
Hmmmm. My office creates presentations and we only use the Normal view. - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
I use this all the time when doing footers. I put the file name on the left, "Page X of Y" in the center and the Saved Date on the right. That's about the only place i use it but i wouldn't want to be without it. - Anonymous
May 16, 2006
Gotta agree with Centaur, Meatgrinder, and Giga. This needs to be conpletely disabled. It's just another way to generate competely unmaintainable documents. One of the key disciplines for document maintainability is 'no empty paragraphs'.*
*Unfortunately, tables (and some other objects) have no "space after" property, so this needs to be kludged with an empty paragraph.
So, here's my suggestion: either make this "feature" implement layout in a maintainable fashion, or chuck it out completely and give us the space after property for tables instead. - Anonymous
May 17, 2006
PingBack from http://www.office12watch.com/click-type-i-never-noticed/ - Anonymous
May 17, 2006
I have never heard of this feature, and in my office (about a dozen people, many of which having used word for years) no-one did either.
As i see it, the feature is un-discoverable except by mistake, in which case most uses will ask themselves "what the heck happend now?", attributing it to the well-known flaky-ness of Word ;-) - Anonymous
June 04, 2006
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July 04, 2006
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