But there are still computer users who have programs installed that deal in only DOC files. These users cannot view DOCX files that are shared with them. Getting Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 is a very pricey solution for this problem. Thankfully there are numerous alternatives you can employ that let you view and, in some cases, even edit DOCX files.

Read about these alternatives below and pick one that suits your preferences best.

Online viewers

Before you consider any installable solutions, you should try out options that do not require the installation of any extra programs on your hard drive. Not only will this save hard disk space, but you will also not need to replace your default text editing application.

· The first online DOCX file handler we recommend is Invest in Tech DOCX to DOC Converter.

This online tool is ideal for people who already have an application installed that lets them view DOC files. Using this website you will be able to easily convert DOCX files stored on your computer to DOC files; the converted files can then be downloaded and opened with your text editor.

· But if you do not have a DOC-viewing program installed, then the best online solution to viewing DOCX files is Google Docs.

Google Docs is a reliable online documents viewing solution presented by Google. The service is already quite popular amongst Google account holders. Document attachments received in Gmail can directly be opened with Google Docs, without the need to download anything. The service then not only lets you view these files but also edit them using extensive modification tools.

There are numerous other online solutions to viewing DOCX files such as ThinkFree and Zamzar. But all of them essentially provide the same functions as the abovementioned tools.

Now let us move on to the installable programs.

Installable Programs

· Fortunately for Mac users, viewing DOCX files in not a problem. In the Mac operating system there is a text editing tool named TextEdit.

The above image is taken from TextEdit’s official website that you can visit here.

TextEdit has built-in support for DOCX files and can view plus edit them without any difficulties. Such a strong text editor is absent from Windows operating systems. Thus to view DOCX files Windows users need to install an additional application.

· For Windows users who already have Microsoft Office 2003 installed, Microsoft offers a compatibility pack. This pack, when installed, adds DOCX support to Word in Office 2003. The pack is sized at nearly 40MB and can be downloaded from here.

After installing the pack, you will be able to open DOCX files with the installed Word 2003 without any glitches.

· For Windows users who do not have Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft offers a freeware that can be used to view DOCX and DOC files. This program is titled Word Viewer.

As far as viewing DOCX files is concerned, Word Viewer is a fine application. But when it comes to editing those files, Word Viewer proves to be insufficient. Therefore you need a replacement program that competently views and edits DOCX files.

· OpenOffice can be that replacement.

OpenOffice is a free software solution that provides you with an entire suite of documents-related software. Included in this suite is a text editor that offers viewing and editing options similar to that of Microsoft Word.

Just like there are numerous online solutions other than ones we mentioned, there are other installable solutions other than the ones we mentioned. We find that the above tools are most user-friendly amongst the available options. We hope that you find them helpful.

If you know of other greatly user-friendly solutions to viewing DOCX files, remember to let us know in the comments.

Alternative Ways To MS Office For Viewing DOCX Documents originally published on Ampercent

If your organization demands working on “paper documents”, the overall printing and paper costs can sum up to a huge amount. The following tips will help you reduce printing costs of office documents, excel spreadsheets, web pages and save money from buying print cartridges frequently.

Don’t Print Everything – Save Ink And Paper

Do you really need to print out that header and footer from all the resumes?

Do you really need to leave those big margins and print out the whole document, instead of printing selected paragraphs, cells or particular slides from the PowerPoint presentation ?

Ask yourself – do you really need to print at all?

Format Webpages and Email Messages Before Printing

When you want to print an article or a blog post from a website, before choosing “File >Print” from the browser’s menu – go to Printfriendly.com and format the web page for better printing. Remove the unnecessary elements like sidebar, header, footer, advertisements etc and print only the text, image and pictures.

Printfriendly.com lets you download the article as a PDF document, you may also choose to print only specific paragraphs from that long article or email the article to a friend. (my earlier choice was Printwhatyoulike.com but it seems they have discontinued the service now).

In case of email messages, you won’t be able to use any external service to format the email message for better cost effective print options. In that case, drop the following bookmarklet in your browser’s bookmarks toolbar (supports all browsers e.g Firefox, Google Chrome, IE, Safari and so on)

Aardvark browser bookmarklet – remove unnecessary elements before printing email messages

When you want to format an email message and print it – hit the bookmarklet, hover the mouse cursor over the regions you don’t want to print and hit “E” to remove the unnecessary sections. Also remember to choose “Print All” in Gmail, instead of chosing the browser print option which would print the whole browser window on paper (instead of the email message body, text and embedded pictures).

Choosing the “Print All” option not only saves ink and paper, you will also get a cleaner document which is easy to read.

Printing Office Documents, Excel Spreadsheets And PowerPoint Presentations

Excel spreadsheets: If you want to print an Excel spreadsheet which contains a large amount of data, there is no need to print all the rows and columns of the spreadsheet.  You can always print only a section of the spreadsheet by right clicking the selection and choosing “Print selection”.

This will not only lower the overall printing cost, but you will also remove the data you never need actually.

In addition to printing only selected parts of the excel spreadsheet, be sure to deselect the option “Print Gridlines”. Do not change the Excel Gridline color to “White”, thinking that the white color will result in lower print costs. Instead, choose the “Black and White” mode or switch to “Grayscale” before printing the spreadsheet.

Word Documents: Before printing a Word document, take note of the following things:

1. Remove the unnecessary big margins, layout options, headers and footers – this may save that extra page while your document gets printed out.

2. Click “Print preview” and choose “Shrink to fit” – this will shirk the content of the document to fit in one page ( if possible).

3. Microsoft Word has an option called “Shrink One page” which reduces the font size and text spacing throught out the document – this ensures that the document fits in less number of pages.

4. Click “Options” under “File >Print” and choose “Draft output” in the printer options. Here you can specify the page numbers and print specific pages instead of printing the entire document.

Choose The Correct Printer

Laser printers generally cost more than Inkjet Printers but if you really want to lower the overall cost of printing, there are couple of reasons why you should always prefer a Laser printer than an Inkjet printer.

If you are printing office documents in black and white or Gray-scale, consider buying a laser printer.

The cost of cartridges will be more but the effective print cost in a Laser printer is way lower than that used in Inkjet printers and the cartridge of a laser printer lasts much longer than the cartridges of Inkjet printers. With the cost of replaced cartridges (USD 12 to USD 60 each) added over the years, you could pay more for an inkjet than a laser printer, if your printing volume is high – source

If your printing volume is low, dump that Laser printer and choose an Inkjet printer instead.

Choose The Correct Font Type

Choosing the correct font type used in documents can have a considerable impact on your overall printing costs.

Study shows that the business cost of printing documents dropped from $258 to $179 (yearly) when an organization switched from “Arial” to “Century Gothic”. Among the cost effective fonts, Century Gothic and Times New Roman are  the most economical followed by Calibri, Verdana, Arial and Sans Serif.

Hence, if your company is paying a large amount of money on buying ink cartridges – tell your employees to use a more “cost effective” font.

Refill Your Printer Cartridges

If you use an Inkjet printer regularly, you might have discovered that the cost of replacing the cartridges can quickly exceed the total cost of the printer itself. Instead of buying new cartridges recursively – consider refilling the cartridges with print ink, manually.

Read the step by step instructions on refilling and reusing a printer cartridge or watch the following video by Howcast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu2fAmvRHyc

Compare Print Prices

Don’t use your home or office printer to print photos, birthday cards or documents that contain heavy graphics. Instead, go to a nearby photo studio and let them print the photos for you. This is because printing unnecessary photos from your home printer turns into a “bad habit” which drastically consumes a lot of ink from the printer cartridges.

You may also want to take a peak at PrintRates.com, the site lets you compare print rates on mail and photo prints. First, compare which online print service is cost effective and charges less on shipping costs. Then send your digital photos to the photo printing company – they will print the photos on paper and ship it to a custom address. (example – shutterfly.com/prints)

What methods do you use to save printing costs of office documents and photos? Share your tips and advice in the comments below.

How To Reduce Printing Costs Of Office Documents – Save Ink And Paper originally published on Ampercent

Microsoft Word makes it very easy to print multiple documents from Windows explorer menu. Surprisingly, you don’t need to open all the documents but can print them all at once. This is perfect when you have a large number of documents to consider and want a quick way to print documents in bulk.

Print Multiple Word Documents From Right Click Context Menu

Follow these simple steps:

1. First adjust your printers settings by printing a sample document and see whether the margins and layout are all correct. Do not ignore this step because if the print settings are not at par with your requirements, all the ink and paper will be wasted.

2. Move all the documents to a single folder and open that folder.

3. If the files are consecutive,  hold down the shift key and select the first and last file. This will select all the files in the order you want them to print. If you want to print selected files only, hold down Ctrl key and select the files you want to print.

For example: Let’s say you have 10 documents with file names 1.doc, 2.doc and so on. If you want to print all the documents serially, hold down the Shift key and select 1.doc and 10.doc ( i.e the first and last file in the series of documents that are going to be printed).

Instead, if you want to print only 5.doc and 9.doc, hold down the Control keyon your keyboard and follow the next steps.

4. Right click and select “Print” from right click context menu. Windows will now print all the documents one by one in the order you have selected them using the default print settings.

Tip: Don’t try to print multiple documents when any of the document is open in Microsoft Word. First close all the documents and then use the above trick.

The above technique works with any office document, not just word. This is quite handy when you have a large number of documents to print and you don’t want to open each document and manually print them one by one.

Also read: Tips to reduce printing costs

Save Or Print Word Documents Into A PDF File

In some situations, you may want to print the word document as a PDF and not on paper. Let’s say you are working on a report and want to send the final copy to a client for verification purpose.

It makes perfect sense to first send a PDF copy of the Word document to the client, see his response, make corrections to the original document if it is asked for and then print the hard copy of the report on paper.

Microsoft Word makes it very easy to print a word document as PDF. In case you are unaware of the “Print as PDF” feature, here are the steps which needs to be followed:

1. Go to Microsoft Download Center website and download the “Save as PDF or XPS‘ office Add-in.

The “Save as PDF” add-in for Microsoft Office 2007 allows you to export and save Word documents as PDF, there is no need to use expensive PDF editing software programs like Adobe Acrobat, Foxit Reader and so on.

2. After the program has been installed, open the document in Microsoft Word and you will see a new ‘Print as PDF’ option, as shown below:

3. Export the doc or docx file as PDF and you are done.

Combine Multiple Word Documents Into A PDF File And Print Them In Bulk

Another good idea to print multiple files or office documents would be to combine all of them into a single document and print the newly created document from the first page to the last. The advantage is that this technique works on all operating systems e.g Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 and you need not worry about whether a specific page of a specific file will be printed or not.

Here are the steps that needs to be followed:

1. First create a backup of all the documents, in case you want to revert the changes later.

2. Open the first document in the list and move the cursor to the end of the document. You will be adding the content of the second document at the end of the first document, hence the cursor needs to be positioned right at the place where the content of the first document finishes.

3. In case you want to insert a document somewhere in the middle of the already opened document, you have to position the cursor at the desired location.

4. Once you are done with the position, switch to the “Insert” tab and select “Insert text from file”.

5. This will allow you to merge multiple word documents into a single document by pulling in the text and content of another document into the current one.

6. Similarly, add up text and content from all the documents into the currently opened document using the ‘Insert text from file” option. The only catch is that Microsof Word wont preserve the formatting of individual documents, so you will need to adjust the formatting at the end.

7. When you are done adding all the documents to the final copy, there are two options

• Either, print all the content using the simple “Print” option in word. This will print all the subpages which you have imported from other documents earlier on.
• Export the final copy as a PDF file, preview it and then print using the default “Print’ option in Adobe Reader ( or whatever PDF reading software you’re using the browse PDF files).

These are just a couple of ways to manage the print jobs of multiple documents in one go. You may also want to check out Google Docs cloud print feature which allows you to send print jobs to your cloud connected printer directly from a mobile device. This is especially useful, when you’re travelling and want to print a whole bunch of documents stored in your Google Docs account.

A slightly complicated procedure would be to sync Google Docs documents with Microsoft office and use Google’s cloud print feature to print multiple documents from anywhere, any computer.

Print Multiple Word Documents Without Opening Them originally published on Ampercent

Steps To Type New Indian Rupee Symbol :

1. Download the Rupee Foradian Font from the Mangalore based Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd blog. Copy the .ttf file after downloading.

2. Open [Windows Drive Letter]:\Windows\Fonts and paste the font there. It will be installed on your PC.

3. Once done, open your MS Word (or any text editing tool that lets you change the font of the text) and type “`” on your keyboard. It is the leftmost key in the number row (not Numpad) i.e just to the left of “1” or just above the Tab key.

4. Select the text (`) and change the font to Rupee Foradian. Bang and the new Indian rupee symbol is there.

If you are still facing some problems doing it just visit Youtube and watch this video tutorial.

How To Type The New Indian Rupee Symbol in MS Word originally published on Ampercent

To add a Text Watermark

1.In the Page layout Tab click on Watermark.

2.You can Select from the Given templates or create your own Text watermark from “Custom Watermark”.

One Downside of Text watermark is that you cant position the watermark according to your needs.It positions itself in the Center itself.To Add your Watermark in a specified position try adding Image watermarks.

To Add Image Watermarks

1.First You need to Create the image Watermark from an Image making Software.We will be using the easiest and default for Windows -Windows Paint.

2.Open paint and type your Text or insert images in the desired positions.For best Results make sure your image size is exactly same with the size of your Document.(By default word documents Width is 915 pixels).

3.When finished,Save your watermark.Open MS-Word and in the page layout options Select “Watermark”.

4.From the radio Button Select “Picture Watermark” and select the picture you just created.

Select the Washout check box to lighten the picture so that it doesn’t interfere with text.Uncheck the Checkbox “Wash Effect” if you want your watermark to appear exactly the same you created.

That’s it.You can delete your images after saving the Word document.

Brand your Word Documents with a Watermark-MS Word 2007 tip originally published on Ampercent

• Insert Text and Voice Comments
• Hide or showcase your Comments
• Edit or remove your comments.You can also edit your Display name in Comments.

To add Text comments in Word 2007

1.Open the Word Document and Select the Text where you want to add Comment.

2.Under the Review tab Click on “New Comment”.

3.As soon as you hit the New Comment Button you will see a Balloon opening up where you can add your comments.

4.For easier navigation click on the “Review Pane” button which opens a sidebar where you can see all your comments that you have added in the document.

5.To hide the comments Click on “Balloons” and select “Show all Revisions Inline”.This will hide all your comments and when you hover over a text that has some comment the comment is shown.

6.Now just hover your Mouse over the selected Text and you can see the Comment.

To Delete the comment just right click and select “Delete comment” or click on the Review pane and delete it from there.

To add Voice Comments in Word 2007

Before you want to add “Voice” Comments you have to add the Button “Add Voice” in the Quick Access Toolbar.

To add the “Add Voice” button in the quick access toolbar

Add Text and Voice Comments in Word 2007-Make Notes/Proofread originally published on Ampercent

Inserting the Symbols in Microsoft Word

The shortcuts are :

1.Ctrl+Alt+C=©  (The Copyright Symbol)

2.Ctrl+Alt+T=TM (The Trademark Symbol)

3.Ctrl+Alt+R=® (The Registered Symbol).

Alternatively you may add Symbols in Microsoft Word by going to INSERT–>SYMBOL–>MORE SYMBOLS.You will find a huge collection of symbols here and may not find a particular symbol that easily

Inserting the Symbols in Microsoft FrontPage

The Codes are :

1.©=©  (The Copyright Symbol)

2.™=TM (The Trademark Symbol)

3.®=® (The Registered Symbol).

Just add these codes to the source of the HTML page and you will see your favorite copyright symbols

How to Create Trademark and Copyright Symbols in Word and Html editor originally published on Ampercent

There are a couple of situations when you may want to add audio files in Word documents.

For example: you might be preparing a project report and need an easy to way  to insert a voice narration in your report. Or you may be playing with an audio narration speech and have prepared a text transcript of the voice narration. It makes perfect sense to include the audio narration in the word document you have prepared, so that your readers can simultaneously listen to the audio file and read the text transcript in the document you have prepared.

In this short tutorial, we will learn how to insert audio clips in Word documents and make them more useful and interactive to your readers.

Using Microsoft Word Object Tool To Add Audio Files In a Document

Here are the steps that needs to be done in order to add audio files in Microsoft Word:

1. Open Microsoft Office and click on the insert tab from the office Menu Bar. In the far right of the application window, select “Object”.Then select ‘Browse” and insert the audio File, as shown below:

Note: This process works only in Microsoft office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010 so if you are using an older version of Microsoft Office, please consider downloading Microsoft Office or upgrade Microsoft Office to it’s most current version.

2. You may link to the original audio file or display it only as an icon. When someone double clicks the audio file icon embedded within the word document, Windows media player will launch and the audio file will be played.

This is indeed a very easy way to add Mp3 or music files to Word documents and let your readers listen to them without having to find the Mp3 on your hard drive. This is ideal for presentations in colleges or office.

Please note that the audio property of the document will be lost if you do any of the following things:

1. You change the location of the document or the location of the audio narration.

2. If you email the document to someone else, he will not be able to listen to the embedded audio podcast or content. You will have to email him both the document and the audio file and the person has to add the file to his document, once he has downloaded your document from the email message. This may sound a bit complex for novice users but unfortunately, this is the only known work around.

Here are a couple of more tips on Microsoft Word which we think you would enjoy reading:

• Add text and voice comments in Microsoft Word
• Print multiple documents without opening them

Using Office Clip Art to Insert Sound in Word Documents

Another great way to add audio files in Word documents is to use the clip art option of Microsoft Word. Following are the steps involved:

1. Click on the insert tab from the office menu bar and select clip art

2. In the right hand task pane scroll down and click on “Organize clips”

3. You are now in the collections pane of Microsoft office clip art window and if this is the first time you are using it, you will have no collections defined in the Clip art section.You will have to create a collection of your audio files that are present in your computers hard drive.

4. Simply drag and drop all the Mp3′s or wav files in the Clip art window to create your own audio collection in Microsoft Word.

5. From file menu, click on “New Collection” and give your collection a relevant name

5. Right click on the collection you just created and select “collection properties”.

6. Set the path of the audio file in your collection . Note that you can add as many files as you want, not just a single Mp3 or Wav recording.

When you are done, click “OK”

7. That’s it. Now you will be able to see your audio files in the clip art collection.

8. Right click the file you want to add to your Word document and select “Copy”. Next, simply paste it anywhere on the document and you are done with it.

The audio or music file can be played by simply clicking the clip art audio icon that appears on the document. Please note that if you change the location of the audio file, the audio property will be broken and won’t work as described.

Do you have any suggestions or questions regarding handling audio files in Word documents or PowerPoint presentations? Please share your ideas in the comments section.

Add Audio Files In Microsoft Word Documents – Insert Speech Narration Or Music Files In Microsoft Word originally published on Ampercent

To enable password protection

1.From the Office Ribbon Click on prepare and select “Encrypt Document”.

2.Word Will ask you the password that you want to set.Enter your Password and remember it as this will be required for opening and editing the document.

Now if anyone tries to open the document(including you) Word will ask for the password making sure the information is in the right hands.This is a very cool way to show the Content Thief that you are smarter.

Also read: How to encrypt and decrypt files in Windows.

Secure your Word Documents by enabling password protection originally published on Ampercent

There are a number of situations when you may want to create a read only word document which can not be edited by anyone else (including you).  Let’s say you are the professor of an academic institution and have compiled a list of questions as an assignment for students. Instead of printing out the whole list of questions, you sent the document to each student via email. So far so good, but the students were clever and they deleted some questions from your list and returned you a new document.

Now, there is no way you can find out which questions were deleted, unless you have stored a copy of the original document on your computer’s hard drive. It would have been better, if you had created a read only word document for students so that they can read the content of the document but editing or deleting content from the document was just not possible.

How To Create A Read Only Word Document In Microsoft Office 2007

1. First back up your main document to a safe location, in case you want to edit it in future.

2 .Open the document in Microsoft Word 2007 and click the office ribbon menu. If you are running an older version of Microsoft Office (Microsoft Office 2003 or Office XP), please upgrade your software to the latest version first. This is because the following features are only available in recent versions of Microsoft Office such as Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010.

3. On the office ribbon menu, choose the “Prepare” option and select “Mark as Final”.

4. After selecting “Mark as Final”, Microsoft Office will will open two subsequent windows notifying you that the document has been marked as final and cant be edited any further. A new icon will also appear in the status Bar, telling that this document has been “Marked Final”.

5. Save the document  and quit Microsoft word.

6. Open the document you will find that no changes can be made to the document now. Anyone, including you can read the document but no more content can be added and neither any content from the document can be deleted. This document is now as good as a PDF document which is read only in nature.

What you are doing here is nothing but encrypting the document so that it is made read only. If you want to completely secure the word document, we highly recommend enabling password protection on a Word document to protect it from being read by anyone else, except you.

Make A Read Only Word Document In Microsoft Office 2007 originally published on Ampercent