Guest Author - Chris Curtis

Under the MS Word Tools | Options menu, there are eleven page tabs that offer options to control how the program behaves under certain conditions. Here is a review of the General options offered.

Background Repagination - is a permanent default in MS2000, 2002, 2003. Forces an automatic “re-paging (pagination) automatically.

Allow Starting in Reading Layout - beginning with MS2000, reading layout was a new view available. The reading layout supresses the normal toolbars and displays only the Reading Toolbar and Reviewing Toolbar. It displays the document in what Microsoft considers an optimal view for reading purposes. A check mark in this option, forces MS Outlook to the reading view whenever you open an email attachment. Remove the checkmark to prevent the reading view from activating on email attachments.

Blue Background – White Text - this option, when checked, turns your document view to a blue background with white text. This can be harsh on some people’s eyes.

Provide Feedback with Sound - this option, when checked, will cause a sound to alert you when certain actions happen such as an error or a process completes or an action dialog box appears. Remove the checkmark to avoid the sounds.

Provide Feedback with Animation - this option, when checked, will cause the cursor to briefly change when certain functions occur such as a background save. Remove the check mark to affect a static cursor.

Confirm Conversion at Open – this option,, when checked, will cause the appropriate conversion software to activate upon opening a document created in another application. If you do not anticipate opening a lot of documents not created in Word, it would not be a problem to deactivate this option by removing the check mark.

Update Automatic Links on Open - this option, when checked, will prompt you to update links to external documents or links contained in a template.

Mail as an attachment - this option, when checked, allows you to send a document as an attachment. When not checked, the document will be imbedded in the body of the email.

Recently used file list - this option, when checked, displays the most recent file you have used or created. You can increase the number of files displayed from the default 4 to a total of 9 files.

Help for Word Perfect Users - this option, when checked, enables help tips for users who are transitioning from Word Perfect.
Navigation Keys for Word Perfect users - this option, when checked, converts certain keys on the keyboard to function as they would within the Word Perfect program.

Allow Background Open of Web Pages - this option, when checked, allows HTML documents to be open in the background while you are still able to use Word for other projects.

Automatically create a drawing canvas when inserting autoshapes - this option is a drawing tool. It can be helpful if you use a lot of graphics in your word documents. It provides additional functionality when working with graphics within Word.

Measurement Units - changes the ruler guides to metric and other measurement units.