|
Your colleague finally e-mails you the 100-line summary you were supposed to have written last week and
> The e-mail was obviously forwarded
> because the first character of each
> line of text has one of those stupid
> greater-than signs.
Now, you have 10 minutes to add the summary to your report, delete those *#@$%&! greater-than signs, print 10 copies, then attend the meeting where you'll be presenting something you haven't even read yet.
What do you do? Well, here's the tip: Alt + drag down the page to select vertically.
When would you Alt + drag? When you want to:
Format all first names from a tabbed list of first names, last names and phone numbers.
Delete numbers, asterisks, dashes, etc. at the beginning of every line of text.
Capitalise the first character in a list of text. (Just Alt + drag to select the text, then press Shift + F3.)
And, If you want to select vertically on a really long document, click where you want to start, scroll down to where you want to end, then Alt + Shift + click. Who knew?
Finally, a use for Courier
Before you Alt + drag to select the first character in a list of text, however, you need to know the difference between monospaced and proportional fonts.
Most fonts are proportional; each character takes up a different amount of space. A few fonts, like Courier are monospaced; each character takes up the same amount of space. (Remember the typewriter?)
To explain this, I'll use the same example I've used for the past 20-odd years.
Type the following in Word, in both Arial and Courier:
Arial
WWWWW
iiiii
Courier
WWWWW
iiiii
Then Alt + drag the first W and i in Arial, then in Courier.
Unless the character you are selecting is the same width down the page, you may need to
temporarily change the font to Courier to make it all the same. (You can always change it back.)
| 
Tips
