13th July 2001

You (no doubt) know that the ENTER key creates a new paragraph in word processors. Sometimes you just want to type on a new line without starting a new paragraph, though. Simply hold down the SHIFT key while pressing ENTER... Shazam! A line break. This is important for formatting purposes (particularly in WYSIWYG Web editors). Now that your paragraphs in Microsoft Word are squeaky clean, your legal department has insisted that every instance of "Super Widget" must be identified with a trademark. No sweat. You can quickly locate every instance with the Find command. Click Edit | Find to start with, then enter the words you're after. Only one problem. You've also used 'super widget' to describe the item. Click the "More" button in the Find dialog and what appears is a bunch of options that can be used to qualify your search. By checking "Match Case," you can easily pick out the items requiring trademark identification (while leaving others alone). Taking another step forward, "Find" can even help you sniff out text that is formatted using a particular font, style, or highlight. Check out the "Format" or "Special" drop-down fields. Notice the Replace tab, too. Not only can you find specific text that matches the traits you're after, but you can replace them with the appropriate characters. Getting back to our example, you could search for "Super Widgets" (matching the case) and replace it with Super Widgets(tm), which adds the trademark symbol. Problem solved!