Controlled collaboration in Ms Word

A fews users asked me about this the other day... how do you manage the changes made by multiple people within a document. So for this post I have a document which will be worked on by two persons, and in designated areas within the document. What I'll do is, I'll bind the specific paragraph to the editor and they would only have permission to edit the approriate areas. After they have done that, I'll do a compare and combine between the doucments to come up with the final version of the word document.

Let's start with this working document, this is paper about how we can 'Play Our Part' towards the environment - every change no matter how small does make a difference :)

I'd like to start by allocating the portions of the document's content to it individual editor, in the ribbon, click on the Review tab and on the right end you will see the option to 'Protect Document', click on the drop-down option and choose 'Restrict Formatting and Editing'.

A side pane for 'Restrict Formatting and Editing' will appear and you will be given a few choices of controls to choose from. '1. Formatting restrictions' is when you want to control the formatting of the styles that the next editor is allowed to choose from. What I intend to do however is not to control the formatting but the editing permission which comes in '2. Editing restrictions' and the list here show the different types of editing, and I will go for 'No changes (Read only)', which means this document is Read-Only unless you have been given the permission to edit it.

This is where you can set the exceptions for editing the document by clicking on 'More Users' and add the users by their domain ID, yes this will only work within the company/corporation domain.

Now I have added myself and my colleague Maryam as editors for the document.

How do I assign the editing permission for Karen, just highlight the area ('Out & About' paragraph) and select the editor from the list. Repeat this till you have covered all the areads which needs to be edited by the names that you have specified in the exception list.

The last step would be to set a password for the document.

After specifying the password, I have emailed the document to Maryam to edit her portions. Now when I (Karen) open the document, it would look something like this:- in the 'Restrict Editing and Formatting pane on the right, I can click on the button to find the regions which I have been permitted to edit, which then will be highlighted within the document. Let me carry on now and make the changes in the paragraph.

So right now when the edited documents come back from Maryam and Karen, there are actually three versions on the document, the draft, Maryam's edit and Karen's edit. Before I can proceed and do a compare between the documents, I need to remove the password to tall three documents otherwise the compare wouldn't be able to work with protected/encrypted content.

In the Review tab, there is the option to Compare two different versions of the document.

I have chosen the draft version here as the original document and Maryam's copy as the revised document and to label her changes with her name 'Sharifah Maryam'.

I know this layout may be a little bit confusing when you first look at it, in the ribbon, still in the Review tab, in the Compare group, you can choose what you want to look at by clicking on one of the options listed in 'Show Source Documents' and if you feel like you don't want to look at so many documents, you could choose to 'Hide Source Documents' and only show the revised document.

In the Tracking group, you can decide how you want the revisions to be shown by clicking on the Balloons dropdown.

The Reviewing Pane is on the left side and here you will be informed on the changes which are between the original and revised document and it is up to you to decide to accept or reject the changes.

After I have compared the documents and have decided which change to keep in Maryam's copy, now I will do a Combine with Karen's copy. Similar to how the dialog box looked like for Compare, we need to browse for the original and revised document and specify how you want the changes to be labeled, here I put the author's names as the labels. When the 'More >>>' button is chosen, the list of the types of changes monitored within the document is shown and you actually have control to pick and choose the settings.

On the Reviewing Pane you will see the changes by the different labels which were specified earlier which are the editors' names.

Right now that I have finalised on the changes between the documents, I'd like to make the document size smaller by compressing the pictures in the document. Click on one of the pictures so that we see the Picture Tools contextual tab and choose 'Compress Pictures' in the Adjust group. And when you click 'Options...' I want to make sure that the highest compression is applied (for email) and the cropped areas are deleted.

From 157MB, now it's only 72.5MB in size... how great is that... lightweight documents, my favourite :)

Headers, Footers, Page Numbers

I have been so caught up with work and my weekends have been too short so yea...forgive me for leaving such a big gap since my last post.. Now let's get back to more 'work smart' with Office 2007, shall we ;)

This post comes from a question which I received from a user when he was creating his documentation. This was the scenario : his document has a cover page, a table of content, and the document body. He had problems fixing the header and the page numbering.

Let's start on this, what I have done in this document here is to put in all my content, the proper headings, generated the table of content and also inserted the cover page (notice the lovely sunflower there :) ) First step would be to settle the content of your document.

Right now, I have just inserted the header (Insert tab > Header > choose the header which you want), the headers have come out on all 4 pages.

I also want the page number to be shown in the header, so I've set my cursor to the end of the header (after '2009') and since the cursor is within the the header, the contextual tab for Header & Footer Tools > Design tab is shown in the ribbon. Choose the Page Number > Current Position and select the number formatting of your choice.

The header now contains the document name, year and also the page number. Next I would like to set a new section for the 'Introduction' portion onwards. Therefore my cover page and table of contents (toc) will be in Section 1, and Introduction onwards will be in Section 2. Click at the beginning of the heading 'Introduction' and go to the Page Layout tab > Breaks > Sections Breaks (Next Page) to do this, or refer to my previous post. I only want my content ('Introduction' onwards) to have the header and page numbering, that starts from page 1.

Click within the 'Header - Section 1' and in the contextual tab for Header & Footer Tools > Design tab in the Options group, make sure the 'Different First Page' option has been cleared, afterthat navigate to the next section by clicking on 'Next Section'.

We are now in Header - Section 2, perform the same checking, make sure the 'Different First Page' option is cleared as well, and turn of 'Link to Previous' so that Section is independent of Section 1.

Once we have done those two checks, click within the document body of Section 1 (cover page and toc), go to the Insert tab, and in Header, choose 'Remove Header' right at the bottom of the options list. This will remove the header in Section 1.

Move to Section 2, choose Page Number (still in the Insert tab) and click on 'Format Page Numbers'. In the Page Number format window, under 'Page Numbering' select the option to Start at: "1" and voila...

That's all there is to it, of course if you follow the steps accordingly.. ;) These steps apply for footers as well.

Customizing a Multilevel List

If you get frustrated with multilevel lists and customizing them, then you are on the right page. Fret not, let me take you step by step to doing this, and hopefully after this you would wonder, 'why was there any frustration in the first place again?' :)

As usual, I have a dummy document ready here which the headings have been formatted into desired styles, these screenshots will give you a run-through on the diffrent headings which have been set.

Let's have a better look via the Document Map.


In the Home tab, within the Paragraph group, you will find 'Multilevel List', and here there are already a few preformatted templates for you to choose from.

I want to have control on how my multilevel list is formatted, and need to do my own customization based on the format which has been fixed for me to follow (for instance).

First step, click on 'Define New Multilevel List' and when the window appears, click on the 'More' button at the bottom to have a look at more options.

Here's the setting for the first level, I have highlighted in yellow the areas which I have changed. I want the first level to be linked to Heading 1, and for this customized multilevel list to show up to 4 levels in the gallery.

For the second level, I want to inherit the number from Level 1 followed by ".1" and so on. To do this, clear the formatting for number text box first, then choose 'Level 1' from the dropdown of 'Include level number from'.

This is what you will see in the 'Formatting for number' text box.


When you have done that, then choose the formatting for after the '.' (point) symbol.

Here is a clearer screenshot to show the changes in the settings that I have made for Level 2 in the multilevel list.

Settings for Level 3, notice for all the changes that is specified, it is previewed on the top left corner so that changes especially in the level and text alignment can be done correctly.

Lastly, level number 4 settings are as follows:

Click on the Ok button and the customized multilvel list is applied to your document.

Here I have typed "(i)" for a point which I have inserted in the document, and when I press the , the formatting for Level 4 automatically kicks in.

When the multilevel list is working as you expected, just right-click and 'Save in List Library". Easy peasy :)

Pain in the neck no more (TOC)

I have always dreaded the part of compiling the Table Of Contents for a documentation. Not anymore because with Ms Office Word, there is a method of automating this :) :) yea....double smiley. Stay tune for this best-kept (not really) feature which makes life so much easier, forget all the manual ways that you have been wasting your time with.

This is a fictitious document that I have prepared, entitled 'Should We Go Green', a continuation of the "green" effort from the previous posting with 'Go Green' powerpoint slides.

The most important thing here is to set the Styles for ALL the headings in the document. Do this by simply highlighting the heading, and in the Home tab, under the Styles group, choose the appropriate Heading.

Next step: You can either insert a blank page first or otherwise, then in the Reference tab, click on 'Table of Contents' and you see a few preformatted TOC, just click on the format you want and it will be inserted where your cursor has been placed.

I have inserted mine into a blank page.

To adjust the properties in the TOC, again in the Reference tab, click on the 'Table of Contents' dropdown and this time, choose 'Insert Table of Contents'. Here, you are free to adjust the levels of the heading to suit your document's requirement.
I personally feel that it is crucial to understand the usage of 'Heading' in a document for TOC and also in 'Document Map'.

Right now, I want to create my own TOC format and this is how it looks like. To save it into the TOC gallery so that I may see it with the other preformatted TOC, just click on the 'Table of Contents' dropdown and select 'Save Selection to Table of Contents Gallery'.

You then get to name this TOC format, I am calling mine 'Document Content'.

Here it is in the new list of preformatted TOC.

If you have made any changes in the document, to update the TOC, do a right-click and select 'Update Field' and Word will do all that for you :)

After your document is done, and you've sent it to a colleague for a review, thanks to Headings and TOC, he/she can easily navigate through the document via Document Map.