Faster in Office: Five tricks for Word 2013

(Image: Microsoft Office 2013, screenshot)

Spice up documents, integrate images and videos, networked teamwork and more: do you write every day with the latest Word from Microsoft Office 2013? We have picked out five helpful tricks that make working with Word easier and eliminate annoying problems.

Tip 1: The new draft register

Documents in Word 2013 can be spiced up with themes, colors and fonts. Once you have put together a particularly stylish combination of different design elements, you can save your work as a new template and transfer it to new documents with a single click.

• You can do this in the "Draft" tab,
• by clicking on "Design" and "Save current design".

Also practical: Whereas in Word 20013 & 2007 all design functions were scattered all over the user interface, you will now find them all together in one place in the "Design" tab.

Microsoft Office (Screenshot)

Tip 2: Insert objects more easily

Inserting objects, whether images or videos, is easier than ever in Word 2013. As soon as you have inserted an object, use the layout options that appear automatically to specify how the text should flow around it.

You can even insert Internet videos, for example from YouTube, in no time at all. To do this, click on "Insert" and "Online videos".

Also practical: screenshots, for example of open windows, can be inserted directly by clicking on "Insert" and "Screenshots".

Tip 3: Smarter collaboration

When several people were working on a document, things quickly went haywire in older versions of Word. One reason for this was that Word used to treat every change as a new comment.

In Word 2013, however, you can reply to a comment. There is a new button to the right of the comment. This makes documents that have been revised several times much clearer.

Tip 4: Edit certain passages specifically

Editing long texts can be a real pain. Especially if you are only working on a specific passage. With Word 2013, you can reduce and expand them so that you only see the part you need.

To do this, you need to divide the document with as many headings as possible into different sections ("Heading 1", "Heading 2" and so on). By clicking on the small triangle to the left of headings, you can then show and hide the sections.

By right-clicking on a heading, you also have the option of "Reduce all headings".

Tip 5: Share texts with others

Your texts can not only be saved directly in Word 2013 as a PDF and sent by e-mail: You can also post them on the Internet with just a few clicks. The only requirement for this is that you have logged in with a Microsoft account.

If this is the case, you can not only upload your document to your SykDrive cloud by clicking on "File" and "Share" and send the corresponding link as an email ("Email"), but also share it for others to edit ("Invite people").

All you have to do is type in the recipient's e-mail address.

Practical: The invitee does not need a Word program. If they click on the link, the slightly slimmed-down but fully functional "Word Web App" opens. Publishing to a blog is also possible ("Publish to blog").