The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Finding the Commands in Microsoft Word
 Have you heard about the Word command called "List Commands"?  
 Brett Lockwood
 brett@melbpc.org.au

Word's Built-In Commands

There are many commands built into Word that we never see. A sometimes frustrating aspect of using an application like Word is thinking: "Is there a command to do this (x,y,z) action?". "How do I determine if this command exists?" "Where do I look?" Even very experienced users of Word can have trouble answering these questions. Usually, looking for an overview of every built-in command in Word is something that does not occur to us, possibly because we just don't know it can be done. Well, it can be done quite easily, and it is a very worthwhile way of seeing just what Word is already programmed to do, and what we can decide, as users, to program Word to do, using keyboard shortcuts and so on.

Word 2000 (PC) and 2001 (Mac) have over 1200 built-in commands, and Word 97 (PC) and 98 (Mac) over 1000. That's a lot of commands! The quirky thing is, there is a command that lets you list every one of these commands, surprisingly called the List Commands command, but it's buried deep within Word where it's hard to find. Well, let's get it out into the open, and put it up onto a toolbar where it can't get away.

Assigning The List Commands Command To A Toolbar Button
  2. Open Word and use the menu sequence of View|Toolbars|Customize to open the Customize dialog box (Figure 1).
  3. Click the Commands tab, scroll down the Categories: listing and click on the All Commands entry to highlight it (or just press the letter a twice to get the same result).
  4. Scroll down the Commands: list until you see the List Commands entry, and click it to highlight it (or click inside the Commands: list area and press the letter l a few times to get the same result).
  5. If you now double-click the Keyboard button to open the Customize Keyboard dialog box, and click on All Commands in the Categories: listing, and then click on List Commands in the Commands: list, you will probably see there is no shortcut key assigned to this command. Considering its value, this is something of an oversight.
  6. Assign a keyboard shortcut to List Commands if you want. If you do this, ensure that Normal.dot is selected in the Save changes in: drop-down list in the Customize Keyboard box (this means that the keyboard shortcut will be available to all your documents). Then click Assign and then Close to return to the Customize dialog box. The List Commands option will still be highlighted.
  7. Click on List Commands and drag it out of the Customize box with the mouse and drop it onto a toolbar. Figure 1 shows the command being dragged out of the box.
  8. Again, ensure that Normal.dot is selected in the Customize box Save in: drop-down list (this means that the toolbar button will be available to all your documents).
  9. Click Close to close the Customize dialog box. Now that you've got the List Commands command where you can easily access it (and perhaps learnt the basic step in how to customise a toolbar at the same time), you can generate two command listings using it.
  10. Click on your new List Commands toolbar button. This brings up the List Commands box (Figure 2). The two choices are self-explanatory.


Figure 1. Dragging the List Commands 
out of the Customize dialog box


Figure 2. The List Commands dialog box 
options for generating Word command 
listings
The Two List Commands Options

Both options in the List Commands box generate a Word document containing a table listing the commands for that option. You can save the listing as a standard Word document that you can edit (add comments to etc.), you can print it, or you can just generate the listing you want at any time using the List Commands toolbar button or the List Commands shortcut key (if you have assigned one).

The List Commands Box "All Word Commands" Option


Figure 3. Use of the "All Word commands" option
 generates a Word document containing an 
alphabetically ordered listing all of Word's 
built-in commands.
In Figure 3, the "All Word commands" option has been selected in the List Commands box (the List Commands button can be seen on the standard toolbar), and Word has generated a new document containing a table that alphabetically lists all its built-in commands. There are about 28 pages of them in Word 97. I have positioned 
the table in the "g" listing to show some of Word's GoTo commands (the GoTo feature is available via the menu sequence of Edit, GoTo.).

In the table that has been generated, the Modifiers column (Figure 3) lists the key/s you hold down in conjunction with the key in the Key column to implement the relevant action. You can see that most of the GoTo commands listed do not have a shortcut key assigned to them. You can assign a key to any command listed in the table by going back to the Customize dialog box and following the steps outlined above.

Figure 3 also shows that the table contains a column headed Menu. If an entry in the Command Name column exists as a sub-option on one of the Word main menu options (that is, it is a first-level entry on one of the main menu options of File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools etc.), that main menu option is included in the Menu column. This means that the List Commands command can also be used as a learning tool for menu contents, or as a fast means of refreshing your memory as to what main menu option to choose to access a given command. In addition, you can easily add your own data to the table if you want to record second-level menu entries. For example, the Menu column entry for the "Go to Next Comment" command in Figure 3 would be "Edit, Go To".

If you generate the "All Word commands" table and spend some time looking through it, you will probably see some commands that you use quite often and that you'd like to apply with keyboard shortcuts which often reduce three or four actions to one action. I use the Style dialog box a lot when I am working with Word styles. This box does not have a default keyboard setting assigned to it, so I assigned Ctrl+Shift+S to this command. You will most likely also see useful commands that are new to you. This is because a lot of the commands in this table are not accessible via Word's default menu or button settings.

Figure 3, for example, lists the commands Go to Header Footer and Go to Next Linked Text Box. These commands are not available in the GoTo options listed via the well-known menu sequence of Edit, GoTo.. This fact may not excite you greatly, but there will be some commands in this table that will make your day a little easier. One example I use in my own work is the EditSwapAllNotes command.

Figure 4 shows the Customize dialog box after the Commands tab has been clicked, the All Commands entry highlighted in the Categories: listing, and EditSwapAllNotes highlighted in the Commands: listing. The Description button has been clicked to get information about this command. If you work with footnotes and endnotes, you can see that this command might be very useful indeed. And it is only available through the All Commands feature. (By the way, you can see how useful the Description button is. Without it, many commands in the All Commands listing would remain a complete mystery.)


Figure 4. The EditSwapAllNotes command. A very 
useful Word command and only available through 
the All Commands feature in the Customize 
dialog box.

The List Commands Box "Current Menu and Keyboard Settings" Option

This option does just what it says. It generates a document containing a table listing all your currently assigned menu and keyboard settings. This table has the same format as the "All Word commands" table. If you forget a shortcut key, this is the command to use. Word 97 generates a table 10 pages long with this command. Given that the "All Word commands" command generates a table 28 pages in length, you can see that about two-thirds of all of Word built-in commands do not have menu or keyboard settings assigned to them. I imagine that any regular Word user who spent three hours examining all these commands and setting up keyboard shortcuts or toolbar buttons for fifteen or twenty unassigned commands could make their Word work a lot easier.

The List Commands command is a great way to learn about the range of commands available in Word. If you are still learning about Word (and aren't we all!), you can see that the All Commands facility can be used an information device to learn about Word from the "inside out", so to speak. I think it is the most useful "teaching" tool in Word. If you're curious about what Word can do, or you've forgotten one of your keyboard shortcuts, or you don't know the initial menu that a command stems from, this is the quick way to get your answers.

Remember that you can choose to save a keyboard shortcut or custom toolbar button in the current (active) document only, or in the Normal template. If you save it to the Normal template, it is available to all your documents.

About The Author
 Brett Lockwood, brett@melbpc.org.au, teaches on-screen editing as Training Officer for the Society of Editors (Vic.), and together with the Society is publishing a number of handbooks on on-screen editing.

Reprinted from the July 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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