Herb Tyson Technical Blog

Have you ever wanted to delete a cell, row, column, or maybe even a complete table, but when you tap the Delete key, the contents get zapped, while the table structure remains behind? There’s a simple solution: the Backspace key.

When you want to delete the contents of all or a part of a table, the Delete key is what you want. Like a disgusting dinner guest, the Delete key clears the table, but keeps the table where it is.

The Backspace key, on the other hand, is the stronger magic wand. It deletes the selected part of the table as well as what’s in it. And, if “what to do with what’s left” is in question, it prompts you, as shown here.

So, if there’s an unwanted row or column, just select it and tap the Backspace key. Of course, make sure that’s what you really want.

Unbalanced tables can be useful, but not if you just wanted to delete the contents of a cell. So… Delete or Backspace. It’s your choice. Different tools for different tasks, when it comes to tables.

Q

I upgraded from Word 2007 to Word 2010. Save defaults to the latest Word format, but when I create a new document, it shows as being in Compatibility mode. Why?

A

Most users think of pre-Word 2007 *.doc files as being in Compatibility mode, and *.docx files as being Word 2007 and Word 2010 files. But, it’s not that simple. Word 2010 introduced several new features that were not present in Word 2007, most notably improvements to the graphics capabilities. As a result. Word 2010 *.docx files do not share the identical format with Word 2007 *.docx files, despite the fact that they both use .docx as the extension.

As a result, there are two Compatibility modes—not just one: We now have doc for Word 97-2003 files, and docx for Word 2007 files. When the latter format is in effect, the docx extension is used, but you will still see [Compatibility Mode] in Word’s title bar. Hence, if you edit a docx file created in Word 2007 using Word 2010, you see Compatibility Mode in the title bar.

“Okay,” you might wonder. “But, why does it say “Compatibility Mode” even for brand new documents I create using Word 2010.”

This occurs because the underlying document template—usually Normal.dotm—is still in Word 2007 format! To resolve this issue, edit Normal.dotm itself and convert it to Word 2010 format.

To edit Normal.dotm, you need to open it as you would open an ordinary document file. If you use Windows Explorer and double-click on Normal.dotm, Word will create a new document based on it, rather than edit that file. Instead, open Normal.dotm from Word 2010 itself. In Windows 7, Normal.dotm usually is stored in a folder named:

C:\Users\Herb\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

except that your user name probably isn’t Herb. You can navigate there manually, but it’s usually easiest to use a default location shortcut that Word creates for you. Press Ctrl+O (File – Open) in Word. You should see a list of locations at the left, including one called Templates, as shown here.

This is the default location for user templates in Word 2010. Click on that location (or, if you don’t see Templates, then navigate to that location). Among the files shown at the right, you should see Normal.dotm. Click on it, and then click on Open. Or, if you want to convert a different document template file, then open it instead.

At that top of Word’s window, you will see the name of the template followed by [Compatibility Mode]. Choose File – Convert, as shown here:

Word prompts you to confirm the conversion. Tick the “Do not ask…” box if you’re so inclined. Personally, I need to know whenever this happens, so I leave it unticked. Then click OK.

At the top of Word’s window, [Compatibility Mode] will now go away. You should now close the template file, saying Yes if prompted to save it.

Finally, create a new file based on the template you just edited to confirm that the conversion worked. If you just converted Normal.dotm, then when you press Ctrl+N (the shortcut for creating a new document based on Normal.dotm), you should get a new document (Document #), but should no longer see [Compatibility Mode] in the title bar.

In a document I’m editing, I have a table that looks like this:

I wanted to add up only the fourth and fifth rows for the civilian population totals. Using the field:

{ =sum(above) }

unfortunately, would include all of the numbers above in each column. So, rather than breaking the table up, copying it elsewhere, doing the math in Excel, or several other more time consuming work-arounds, I decided to instead hide the cells I wanted excluded!

How do you do this? You select the cells you want to hide, and then press Ctrl+D for the full Font dialog box:

Click to tick Hidden, and then click OK. If you still see those rows, press Ctrl+Shift+8 to toggle hidden text off. If you still see those rows, then choose File > Options > Display, and remove the tick next to Hidden. Now, if I look at my table, I see only:

Now, when I enter { =sum(above) } into the 2008 and 2009 Civilian Population cells, and press F9 to update/calculate, I get:

To avoid later mis-recalculation, I select each of the two shaded cells, and press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to convert them from fields to hard text (one at a time, because Ctrl+Shift+F9 doesn’t work across multiple cell selection n a table). Finally, I select the hidden cells, press Ctrl+D and remove the hidden attribute, and my table now looks like this:

And, while all this might seem complicated, it took me about 15 seconds to do it—a bit less time than other methods I’ve used in the past.

Someone in Microsoft’s Answers forum wrote that the Microsoft Math Add-in doesn’t seem able to handle equations like this one:

total BTUH=CFM*(THS1-THS2)*4.5

Indeed, when I insert that equation into an equation container in Word 2010, then choose Compute – Solve, this is what I see:

The Math add-in does not handle multi-character variable names done in that way. Instead, it treats “total BTUH” as t*o*t*a*l*B*T*U*H. What fun!

An awkward but possibly-acceptable work-around is to substitute single-letter variables,

b=x(w-z)4.5

Now, Math offers the following choices:

It will also let you graph in 3D:

But, note that the choices of letters are important, since Math has some pretty set ideas about where x, y, and z belong in a 3D graph, as well as what specific letters mean. If I arbitrarily assign different letters, it ranges from not working at all to giving entirely different graphs.

Another route is to use _ to create multi-character variable names. If we try to let the variables resemble the original names, such as choosing:

b_tuh=c_fm(t_hs1-t_hs2)4.5

Solve now works correctly:

But, now all of the choices for Graph are grayed out:

And, as usual… YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Eugene Sidoroff writes:

Your books about Word are great! However, I was disappointed when I read this note on the top of page 17 of “Microsoft Word 2010 Bible” the following:

“Unlike many ribbon tools, the MiniBar tools do not produce live previews of formatting and other effects. If you need to see a live preview, use the ribbon instead.”

This is NOT true!

You’re right, Eugene! Actually, this was left over from Word 2007—the editors and I completely missed this! In Word 2007, you saw this:

In Word 2010, however, four dropdown controls in the minibar—font, point size, highlighting, and font color—now feature live preview: