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What's New in MS Word 6.0 for the Macintosh

Introduction

Apart from the features seen in a brief demonstration of Microsoft® Word 6.0 for the Macintosh™, there are literally hundreds of major and minor enhancements to the product that would take days to demonstrate. The goal of this document is to give you a more detailed look at these enhancements.

Word 6.0 was shaped by a wealth of customer feedback gathered via our 'User Driven Design' process:

• Word 6.0 has undergone more usability testing than any other application in Microsoft history-over 300 individual tests on virtually every aspect of the product.
  
• Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS), from its experience in answering over 3,000 Word related calls a day, has influenced hundreds of changes to Word in an effort to minimize the frequency and length of support calls.
  
• Over one thousand user suggestions have been granted from our customer "Wish" database.
  
• Over 1.5 million actions from 500 users were recorded by our "Instrumented Version" of Word. We used this data to ensure that the most commonly performed tasks are accessible on the toolbars and shortcut menus in Word 6.0.
  
• To help guide the direction of Word and to see how people actually use our product, we visited over 400 user sites for in depth interviews as part of our Activities Based Planning (ABP) process.

We combined all of this research, planning and feedback with one of the largest development efforts in Microsoft applications history to arrive at Word 6.0, resulting in a release of unprecedented depth and breadth. Even this document detailing the major areas of enhancement just scratches the surface.

Ease of Use

• Multi-level Undo & Redo Word allows you to undo and redo your last 100 actions with a unique interface to navigate forward and backward through the history of your document.

• AutoCorrect. Word 6.0 corrects your most common typographical and spelling errors on the fly.

• Visual Dialog Boxes. Word has enhanced many of its dialog boxes to make them more intuitive by providing rich visual feedback. Below is an example of Word's Zoom dialog.

• Editable Zoom. Word 6.0 provides the ability to view documents at magnifications from 10-200%. Documents remain fully editable, regardless of the zoom level. Word 5.1 could only zoom in its non-editable Print Preview mode.

• AutoFormat. Word 6.0 can automatically analyze and format your document, creating nicely formatted documents from straight text or even raw e-mail text.

• Style Gallery. Once your document has been auto-formatted, you can use the Style Gallery to choose from a wide variety of supplied style sheets, preview the effect of applying these style sheets to your document, and apply the style sheet which gives the desired look. The Style Gallery is a perfect complement to the AutoFormatter.

• Table AutoFormat. Word can also AutoFormat tables just like Microsoft Excel. You can pick from a number of preset formats and then vary these by adding color and designating special rows and columns.

• AutoSelect. Word makes selecting and formatting text easier in a number of ways by becoming the first true "word" processor-as opposed to a "character" processor.

• Word makes selecting text easier by automatically selecting words as you extend your selection. For example, when clicking in the middle of the word "AutoSelect" in the example below and dragging to the right, Word's selection model changes as the selection extends into the next word. So, as the selection crosses into the word "some", Word selects all of the word "AutoSelect" and then extends the selection a complete word at a time. This feature is easier to use than it is to describe, but it allows the user to easily and accurately select a desired chunk of text with a fast swipe of the mouse.

The examples below assume you are dragging the cursor to the right ->

The top item shows what happens as Word's cursor is dragged to the right over the letters "Select"

Notice how, as the selection reaches into the next word, Word's selection bounces back to grab the rest of the original word and also starts selecting new text a whole word at a time.

• Word makes formatting easier too. To apply a character property to a word, the user simply needs to place the cursor anywhere in the word and invoke the appropriate formatting command. Word automatically applies the formatting to the entire word, assuming that you probably didn't just want to format the space between two single characters of the word!

• MRU Font List Word 6.0 appeals to font lovers by keeping a list of the nine most recently used fonts. If you have many fonts, it's tedious to scroll back and forth between Courier and Times, two popular fonts.

• Fully editable print preview. In Word 6.0 all views of your document are fully editable. Print Preview remains as a menu item for continuity, but the behavior is virtually indistinguishable from Word's Page Layout view. Print Preview does maintain its own view settings in terms of active toolbars and zoom percentage, and it also has a few special tools of it own described below. And of course, print preview is fully editable.

• Shrink to Fit. A useful new tool in Word 6.0 is the Shrink to Fit icon on the Print Preview toolbar. This tool automatically shrinks a document to fit on less page by proportionally tweaking font size and margin settings throughout the document. This is very useful for shrinking that two page letter onto one page!

• Multi-Page View. Word 6.0 allows you to display dozens of fully editable thumbnails at once. On a 12" monitor up to 45 pages can be displayed, but the maximum number of thumbnails is limited only by screen resolution.

Word 6.0 lets you drag out the number of pages to display at once.

• Horizontal Ruler. Word has improved its ruler in a number of ways to make it much easier to resize column widths and set tabs, indents, and left and right page margins. For example, dragging any item on the ruler will drop a dashed line down through your document text to act as a visual alignment aid.

• Vertical Ruler. Word has also added a vertical ruler. In addition to being a useful visual aid, the vertical ruler allows you to resize headers, footers, top and bottom page margins, and table row heights.

• AutoText. Apart from renaming what were known as Glossaries in Word 5.1, Word 6.0 has done several things to make AutoText an even more useful and powerful feature.

• The AutoText dialog now has a rich text preview so it can be used to view formatted entries.
  
• The built-in 'Standard' glossary entries have been replaced by Fields, a powerful and flexible new feature in Word 6.0. For a full description, see item 101.
  
• AutoText entries can be expanded in the document from a subset of their defined name. For example, one can select a three line address and click the AutoText button on the toolbar. Word automatically prompts the user with a proposed AutoText name. Then, just by typing a string unique enough to distinguish the AutoText entry from any similar entries, it can be expanded without having to exactly match the name.

• Format Painter Word 6.0 includes a Format Painter tool on its standard toolbar to allow users to quickly and easily copy formatting information throughout their document.

• Drag & Drop Word 5.1 innovated by pioneering the concept of Drag & Drop to allow users to easily move text in their documents. Word 6.0 has expanded upon that metaphor in a number of ways. Word now automatically ensures the appropriate number of spaces before and after dragged text, so that for example spaces appear after punctuation and not before. Word also provides visual feedback by changing the mouse cursor to inform the user when they're performing a drag and copy by holding down the OPTION key.

• Cross-Document Drag & Drop Word now also lets you drag information between different Word document windows to make it even easier to manipulate text between multiple documents.

• Labeled breaks. In Normal view, Word has always used a number of different styles of horizontal lines to depict section, page, and column breaks. Word 6.0 has enhanced this in a logical way by labeling each line with a clear description of the type of break it denotes.

• Smooth Scrolling. Scrolling in Word 6.0 is now very smooth and continuous, especially moving from one page to the next. This is because Word can now display the bottom of one page and the top of the next simultaneously as it scrolls between pages.

• Help Access. All Word dialog boxes now include a button to tunnel the user directly to the context sensitive help system. Previously, users needed to know that hitting z+? invoked the appropriate help command.

• Close All. Word 6.0 lists a handy Close All command on the File menu if you hold down the SHIFT key before dropping down the File menu.

• AutoSave. Word 6.0 protects the user by periodically making a record of current document changes. This information is then used to recover documents if for some reason the system is unexpectedly shut down or restarted before the changes have been permanently saved. To avoid being obtrusive, the AutoSave interval is easily adjustable in Word's Save options, and AutoSave can be interrupted by hitting the ESCAPE key. Finally, AutoSave is disabled by default while running on a PowerBook to conserve battery life and limit disk access. In contrast, Word 5.1 provided a Save reminder feature, but this would never actually take action automatically.

Microsoft Office Consistency & Integration

• Microsoft family synergy. The Microsoft Office applications share an unparalleled level of consistency and integration. This includes the following:

• Shared toolbars, buttons and ToolTips
  
• Consistent dialog boxes and a similar look throughout with 3-D and tabbed dialogs
  
• Shared top level menus and shortcut menus
  
• Microsoft Office integrated install & uninstall and shared setup tools
  
• Shared modules such as spelling dictionaries and OLE applets
  
• Support for OLE 2.0, OLE Automation, AppleScript™ and PowerTalk™

Consistent top level menus and toolbars in Word 6.0 and Microsoft Excel 5.0.

• OLE 2.0 support. Word 6.0 supports OLE 2.0 as a container and an object, enabling tight integration between Word and other Microsoft applications. Word supports OLE Visual Editing, structured storage and OLE Automation.

• Cross-Application Drag & Drop. Word provides a natural and exciting way to share information between applications by allowing you to drag and drop information across applications. This is enabled by OLE 2.0, and it works between Word 6.0, Microsoft Excel 5.0, PowerPoint® 4.0, Microsoft Project 4.0, and Works 4.0.

• Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Button. Word 5.1 innovated by allowing you to graphically drag out the dimensions of a table. Word 6.0 takes this paradigm even further by using OLE 2.0 to let you graphically size and insert an in-place Microsoft Excel 5.0 spreadsheet object. This is a much more direct and intuitive interface than using the Insert Object command to accomplish the same task.

Dragging out a Microsoft Excel 5.0 Spreadsheet Object

• Equation Editor 2.0. Word includes a new version of Microsoft Equation Editor which enables Visual Editing of equations directly inside of Microsoft Word. Equation Editor 2.0 is also completely cross-platform compatible.

• Microsoft WordArt. Word includes Microsoft WordArt 2.0, a text effects program which allows users to create special effects from any TrueType fonts installed on their system.

• Microsoft Graph 5.0. Word includes a new version of Microsoft Graph which enables Visual Editing of your charts directly inside of Microsoft Word.

• Tabbed Dialogs. One of the usability enhancements in Word 6.0 is the use of "tabbed dialogs." Below are before and after examples of the Options/Preferences dialog in Word 5.1 and Word 6.0. Usability testing has shown that tabbed dialogs lead to more accessible and well organized dialog boxes which make it easy for users to access a variety of information quickly and easily.

• ToolTips. Word includes ToolTips, an enhancement which allows you to easily find out what a toolbar button does. As the user places the mouse over a toolbar button, the ToolTip automatically activates after a brief pause and displays a short description of that toolbar button and each subsequent button the mouse pointer passes over.

A Word ToolTip describing the Open button.

• Toolbars. Word 6.0 provides very rich and flexible toolbar functionality:

• Word ships with fifteen pre-defined toolbars for specific tasks. Ten of these toolbars are always available to the user, while the other five are available in specific contexts.
  
• Toolbars can all be dragged and dropped as floating toolbars or docked onto any edge of the screen. You can display as many toolbars as you'd like in any combination of possible locations. If your toolbar contains dropdown items, Word automatically transforms these commands into the closest equivalent single button command when docking on the left or right edge of the screen, allowing all toolbars to be docked on all edges of the screen.
  
• Word's toolbars are fully customizable from the Tools Customize dialog which allows you to create any number of new toolbars with buttons for any Word command, font, style, macro, or AutoText entry. You can also directly move buttons by holding down the command key and copy buttons using the option key.
  
• You can toggle between color and black & white buttons, and Word includes 'large' buttons designed for high resolution screens. Word also includes a button editor to create new buttons or modify existing images.

• Shortcut menus. Word features shortcut menus which can be accessed by holding down the CONTROL key and clicking anywhere in your document. There are twenty-four different context sensitive menus, and they are all fully customizable. Word provides menus for Toolbars, text, graphics, fields, lists, tables, frames, and other objects.

• View buttons. Word has incorporated a convenient usability enhancement from Microsoft PowerPoint, a set of buttons to quickly toggle between different views. The buttons below appear on Word's horizontal scroll bar to toggle between Word's Normal, Page Layout, and Outline views.

• Microsoft Toolbar. Word 6.0 has a toolbar to launch and switch between Microsoft applications.

• Wizards. Word includes ten Wizards, part of Microsoft's award winning technology, to easily step you through the process of creating different type of documents like facsimile cover sheets, memos, resumes, and meeting agendas.

• Rich Text Controls. Many dialog boxes in Word 6.0 use 'rich' text controls so that formatting and special symbols can be applied and displayed. Also, CONTROL clicking in these controls provides a convenient shortcut menu.

Accessing a shortcut menu within the Labels rich text control.

• Status Bar. The Word 6.0 status bar has improved in a number of ways.

• The status bar has a number of spaces to track the status of certain states in Word such as macro recording and revision marking. These states are displayed as black when active and gray when inactive.
  
• The status bar is dynamic so double clicking on the REC item automatically triggers the process of recording a macro. The status bar also displays toolbar button descriptions automatically as ToolTips activate.
  
• The status bar provides useful information such as a clock and a PowerBook™ battery indicator.
  
• The status bar includes graphical progress indicators to track the status of actions like converting or saving a file.

• Tip of the Day. Every day Word presents its willing users with a tip on how to do something more effectively. Word includes over 300 tips ranging from beginning to advanced. All of the tips are accessible via Word's help engine.

• MRU Files List. Word now allows the user to easily change the number of files they would like to appear in the Most Recently Used (MRU) file list. The control shown below is accessible from the General panel in Tools Options.

• Paste Special. Pasting an object into Word 6.0 has been made easier by providing the user with more information about the action being performed. Word also lets you paste objects as an icon.

Cross Platform Compatibility

• Core Code. Word 6.0 for the Macintosh® shares a virtually identical interface, feature set, and binary file format with Word 6.0 for Windows™ and Word 6.0 for Windows NT™. This helps to leverage investments in Word training, and it greatly improves cross platform compatibility and coexistence.

• Cross Platform Pictures. Word 6.0 is designed to maintain picture fidelity in cross-platform file exchanges. This is very important, because, while Word shares an identical file format on the Macintosh, Windows and Windows NT, the underlying display architectures differ between Windows and the Macintosh. Word retains cross-platform fidelity by temporarily converting pictures only for display purposes in cross-platform exchanges. Therefore, if a user of Word 6.0 for Windows creates a document which includes several pictures, a user of Word 6.0 for the Macintosh can view and edit the document without permanently affecting the enclosed pictures. Word only permanently converts a picture when the user double-clicks to edit that particular image. For more specific information, see the second edition of the Microsoft Word 6.0 Resource Kit available from Microsoft Press.

• Cross Platform Macros. Word 6.0 for the Macintosh shares a nearly identical macro language with Word 6.0 for Windows, allowing developers to create cross-platform solutions based on Word. The only areas of difference mirror the differences in the operating systems such as printing, network, and file architectures. For more specific information, see the second edition of the Microsoft Word 6.0 Developer's Kit available from Microsoft Press.

• Bundled TrueType® Fonts. To maximize document portability between Windows and the Macintosh, Word 6.0 includes several fonts normally sold separately in the Microsoft TrueType Master Set for the Macintosh. These fonts include Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, and Wingdings, and they are the same basic fonts included with Windows 3.1. This is important for maintaining document appearance, because these fonts are similar to but different from the Helvetica, Courier and Times fonts available on the Macintosh.

• TrueType Font Embedding. Word 6.0 allows you to save your documents with embedded TrueType font information, and this can be very helpful to ensure document portability and appearance. This ability of course depends upon the licensing rights of the font. This feature is useful for exchanging files with other users of Word 6.0 for the Macintosh, but it also can be used cross-platform to transfer fonts between Windows and Macintosh users.

• Font Substitution. Word 6.0 has greatly expanded its ability to map to the proper font or closest available alternative when opening documents with missing fonts. Word provides a friendly interface to choose fonts available on the system with a choice to make this a permanent or temporary font mapping. In contrast, Word 5.1 can perform some font mapping, but the functionality depends upon the direct editing of obscure text based settings files.

• Compatibility Options Word 6.0 includes an interface to modify certain layout and pagination behaviors to maintain compatibility across platforms and versions of Microsoft Word. Several of these options are automatically triggered when opening a document created by another version of Word, allowing these documents to more closely retain their original appearance.

To improve backward compatibility, Word 6.0 can be configured to mimic Word 5.1 layout behavior.

Maximizing the Macintosh

• QuickDraw™ GX Printing. Word 6.0 supports the new QuickDraw GX printing system, providing power and flexibility never before seen in Macintosh printing. QuickDraw GX enables Word to provide:

• Convenient selection of printers from within Word, a task which used to require a tedious trip to the Chooser.
  
• Clean mixed-orientation printing, a feature necessary to print an envelope and letter in the same Word document.
  
• Easy creation of Portable Digital Documents (PDD's) for seamless electronic document distribution.
  
• Seamless integration with QuickDraw GX printing extensions. This allows third party developers to create all sorts of printing related add-ons to add power and functionality to Word and other QuickDraw GX applications.

• AppleScript™.To allow easy task automation, Word 6.0 exposes a rich and powerful Apple Event Object Model going considerably beyond that offered by any other word processor. For a more in depth description see item 58.

• PowerTalk™.Microsoft Word offers a powerful and flexible set of workgroup oriented features, highlighted by its rich support for PowerTalk. For a more in depth description see item 70.

• PowerBook™ Support. A major design goal for Word 6.0 was to provide solid performance on a PowerBook. Word 6.0 is much more effective than Word 5.1 at avoiding disk access whenever possible, promoting longer battery life. When Word 6.0 is set with a 2,400K partition, it should never touch the disk for typing, editing, or performing basic formatting. This includes using the toolbar or keyboard to make text bold, italic or to change font and size settings. Word 6.0 also includes a special toolbar to augment the keyboard on a PowerBook, providing one click access to navigation functions such as Start of Document, End of Document, Start of Line, End of Line, Page Up and Page Down. Finally, Word also includes a special battery charge indicator on its status bar which you can see in item 39.

The Word 6.0 toolbar for PowerBook navigation functions.

• Publish & Subscribe. Microsoft Word has supported Publish & Subscribe since it was introduced with System 7.0 in 1991. Word 6.0 expands on that support by providing the flexibility to choose which formats Word publishes with a particular edition. This is very useful if an application cannot specify the desired format from a subscriber. For example, older versions of Aldus PageMaker always choose 'Text' from a Word subscriber. However, in the case of a published Word table the optimal results are obtained by instead subscribing to the 'Pict'. By using this Publisher option in Word 6.0, you can choose to publish only the Pict image, thereby ensuring optimal results in this case.

• QuickTime™.Microsoft Word has supported QuickTime since 1992, and Word 6.0 continues to make it easy to embed QuickTime movies through the use of the new Microsoft Movie OLE server.

• Text-to-Speech. Microsoft Word has supported Text-to-Speech since its introduction in 1993 through a supplemental Word 5.1 Plug-In Module. Word 6.0 will continue this support with a supplemental Word 6.0 Add-in library.

Programmability & Custom Solutions

• WordBasic. At long last, Word 6.0 features a powerful and robust macro language capable of automating any task that can be performed in Word. This macro language features over 800 macro functions, programatically exposing all of the features within Word. Also, WordBasic is common across Macintosh, Windows, and Windows NT versions of Word 6.0, enabling cross-platform application development.

• AppleScript. Word 6.0 for the Macintosh supports the Required, Core, Table, and Text suites as defined by the Apple Event Registry. This provides access to many basic objects (for example, windows, documents, and text within a document) and their properties (for example, the point size of a text object) within Word. In addition, Word defines four objects and about 40 properties as extensions to the standard suites listed above. Much of Word's functionality is not exposed via Apple Event objects or events. This is because the standard suites are meant to be a common interface object across many differing applications. However, AppleScript users can still control Word completely through the use of the DO SCRIPT event, which allows a script to execute any WordBasic statement or macro. This effectively gives a script access to all the functionality in Word 6.0 for the Macintosh.

• OLE 2.0 Automation. Word 6.0 exposes all of its WordBasic commands as one large object via OLE Automation. This allow other applications and tools which support OLE Automation to drive Word directly from their macro languages. Microsoft Excel 5.0 and Project 4.0 are example of applications which can drive Word.

• Custom Dialog Boxes. Word 6.0 provides a graphical dialog editor to allow macro writers to easily create powerful and flexible custom dialog box definitions. Word's dialog boxes are based on a dynamic, event-driven programming model, and they provide the ability to include buttons, option groups, checkboxes, dropdown controls, text labels, true multi-line textbox controls, pictures, and even a live FilePreview control which displays a Word file.

• Macro Recorder. Word 6.0 includes a macro recorder to expose the power of WordBasic to unsophisticated users. By simply recording actions and playing them back, even beginning users can automate basic Word tasks. The macro recorder also acts as a convenient and thorough code generator for experienced WordBasic programmers.

• WordBasic Help. Word 6.0 includes extensive on-line WordBasic help to provide support on the fly for macro writers. Best of all, it includes reusable code examples for many WordBasic statements and functions.

• Template Architecture. Word 6.0 offers a rich layered architecture where applications are distributed in Word templates. Templates can contain macros, AutoText entries, styles, and interface customization such as toolbars.

• Add-ins & global templates. Word 6.0 also allows the user to load and unload multiple Word Add-in Libraries and global templates. This makes Word's template model less restrictive, and makes it easier for developers to distribute updated versions of templates.

• Startup Folder. Word has a startup folder to automate the process of loading Global Templates and Add-ins. Any of these which are located in this folder will automatically be loaded when Word is launched.

• Word-API. In addition to its AppleScript and OLE Automation interfaces, Word 6.0 also includes an API for low-level command access for those programmers who want extra performance in their Word solutions.

• Organizer. Word 6.0 adds a powerful tool, the Organizer, for managing and moving the elements of your templates.

• Keystroke Customization. Word 6.0 lets you assign virtually any keystroke to any command. Word provides the ability to assign a two keystroke combination to invoke a command such as CTRL+S, 1 (where the user hits CTRL + S as one key and then 1 as the second key) to assign Style1, CTRL+S, 2 to assign Style2, etc.

• Menu Customization. Word 6.0 gives you complete control to modify your menus, including adding menu items anywhere in the menu and even adding new top level menus. Word 5.1 did not allow the creation of new top level menus. Word 6.0 also lets you modify each of Word's 24 shortcut menus and even the menus that appear when no documents are open.

Workgroup Functionality & Forms

• PowerTalk. Word 6.0 offers rich support for PowerTalk by allowing you to send, read, and reply to mail from directly within a document. To enable interoperability with other PowerTalk users, Word can send and receive PowerTalk mail in Word format or any format accessible through a Word file converter. Word also supports the AppleMail and SnapShot formats. All of this functionality is tightly integrated into Word as shown below.

• Mail Toolbar. Word 6.0 makes it easy to use PowerTalk with its new Mail toolbar. This toolbar provides easy one click access to all of Word's PowerTalk functionality.

• Revision Marking. Word 6.0 introduces revision marking to facilitate group editing of documents. Word keeps track of which author made a revision and when he or she made it. It also allows you to easily review these revisions and accept or reject each one. Word 6.0 has a facility to merge revisions from a number of documents and authors back into an original. Most importantly, since many users are uncomfortable seeing revision marks while they write, Word gives you the option of tracking revisions 'silently' by marking revisions without actually showing them.

• Compare Versions. Word 6.0 includes a Compare Versions feature to flag the differences between two documents. It flags these comparisons at the character level and displays differences using Word's revision marking features.

• Annotations. Word 6.0 makes managing annotations easier by integrating them tightly into the document as their own window pane. Word 6.0 also provides an option to print the annotations directly with a document, whereas Word 5.1 required the creation of a new document to print annotations. Word 6.0 also provide the option to view all annotations at once or on a per author basis. Finally, when you click on an item in the annotation pane, Word scrolls to and selects the annotated document text.

• Find File. The Find File module in Word 6.0 has been overhauled to be shared by all Microsoft Office applications. It now supports the following features.

• It has the ability to save any number of pre-defined searches.
  
• Users can conduct context sensitive searches with full GREP support.
  
• Search results can be displayed in Preview, Summary, or File Info views.
  
• Find File allows users to batch select files to be opened, copied deleted or printed.

• Master Documents. Word 6.0 provides an easy facility to create multiple author documents through its Master Document feature. This feature allows you to use Word's Outliner to manage contributions from a number of different authors or to simply break up a larger document into a number of linked smaller documents.

• Form Fields. Word 6.0 introduces Form Fields. These fields are activated when documents are protected for Forms. There are three types of form fields: text, checkbox, and dropdown.

• Section protection. The magic of forms in Word is the ability to lock entire sections of your document so that only the Form fields are fillable.

• Trigger macros. Every form field can have an entry and exit trigger macro associated with it. This allows the form creator to dynamically change the form environment as the form filler navigates through the form.

• Printing & saving only data. Word 6.0 also presents the option to only print or to only save forms data. This allow the use of Word with pre-printed forms and as a rudimentary database front-end respectively.

Mailing & Mail Merge

• Labels. Word 6.0 makes it easier than ever to print labels. It supports all of the Avery® label formats right out of the box, and it makes it easy to customize your labels if you use another brand.

• Envelopes. Word 5.1 innovated by making the task of creating envelopes easier than ever before. Word 6.0 expands upon this with lots of feedback from Microsoft PSS (Product Support Services). In particular, users often struggle getting the envelope lined up correctly in the printer. Word 6.0 makes this easy using a dialog with rich visual feedback. Also, Word 6.0 lets you choose custom sized envelopes if you use non-standard stationery.

• Postnet Barcodes. Word 6.0 has the ability to create USPS certified postnet barcodes by automatically finding the appropriate street address and ZIP code information in an envelope or label.

• Envelope & Label Merging. The Envelopes & Labels feature is tightly integrated into the Word 6.0 mail merge process. In fact, Word has specific merge routines geared toward each of these features, accessible by choosing a different main document type on the first of the three mail merge steps shown below.

• Mail Merge. The Mail Merge feature in Word 6.0 is very interactive, leading the user through a three step process to set up their mail merge. It is revolutionary in terms of how dynamic it is, enabling the user to easily and flexibly integrate information from a variety of a sources into a variety of destination media types.

• Mail Merge Toolbar. This toolbar makes it easier to insert merge fields, insert Word fields, search for information about a specific field, and preview one or more merge documents before the user actually conducts a merge.

• Conditional Fields. Word 6.0 makes it easy to add conditional fields to a mail merge to build more robust and flexible merge solutions. Below is one example of inserting a conditional field.

• Mail Merge to Electronic Mail. Word 6.0 allows you to perform a mail merge with an unusual destination, electronic mail. This is one more example of how dynamic the mail merge engine is in Word, allowing merges to Microsoft Mail, AppleMail, or any PowerTalk mail client.

• Catalog Merge. Word 6.0 also allows you to perform a 'catalog' mail merge which is basically a merge without page or section breaks between the records. This allows you to build database style reports.

• Mail Merge Preview. Word 6.0 provides the ability to give the user a live preview of their mail merge, before it even happens. The user simply clicks the mail merge preview button on the Mail Merge toolbar and their mergefields are instantly turned into a live view onto their data. Different records are viewed by clicking on VCR style controls. This feature greatly eases mail merge troubleshooting, eliminating one of the major reasons to perform a mail merge to a document.

• Create Data Source. Word 6.0 makes it much easier than Word 5.1 for users to create a data source from scratch by providing a list of the most common field names as a default. To build their own data sources, most users will simply delete the fields they don't need. Word of course gives you the freedom to customize the fields however you'd like.

• Data checking. Word 6.0 is much more robust about handling mail merge data errors. Extra spaces and tabs which used to confuse Word are now generally corrected automatically. Word also offers more flexible error reporting.

• Insert Database. Word 6.0 enjoys excellent data access through Microsoft Excel and Microsoft FoxPro, and the Insert Database command makes it easy to build a Word table from one of these data sources. Word also includes a DATABASE field to enable the creation of linked tables.

• Mail Merge & Data Access. Of course, this data access capability makes even more sense when it is integrated into Word's Mail Merge process. The combination of Word's mail merge engine and data access allows users to set up merges that re-execute a query for every record merged, in essence performing the services of a lookup function.

• Database Toolbar. Word 6.0 ships with a Database toolbar which give you all the tools you need to manage any Word table of information. This can be used for standalone tables or in conjunction with Mail Merge.

The Database toolbar in Word 6.0 lets you easily manage your data.

• Data Form. Word 6.0 can display a data form for a table or regularly delimited series of information. This is a very powerful and easy to use way of managing Word data alone or in conjunction with mail merge.

A sample data form in Word 6.0

• Sorting. Word 6.0 greatly expands upon the sorting available in Word 5.1 by offering a three key sort. The sorting dialog is even intelligent enough to determine if your data has a header row, and if so it presents you with the field names instead of the column numbers.

Long Documents & Proofing Tools

• Goto. The goto dialog has been made much richer in Word 6.0 by providing an interface to allow jumping forward or backward to a number of different document objects. In contrast, the Word 5.1 goto feature provided very limited navigation functionality.

• Find. The Word 6.0 search and replace facility has been improved in a number of ways. It stores a dropdown of the most recently searched items, and it now includes a button to tunnel directly from the Find dialog to the Replace dialog. You can also use pattern matching (GREP) to create complex searches, or you can search for items that 'sound like' other items.

• Visual Header/Footer Editing. Word 6.0 has greatly revamped the way users edit and manage headers and footers. When users edit their document in Word's Page Layout view, headers, footers, and other repeated items like watermarks are all slightly grayed out to signify their special nature. When a user selects View Header/Footer, the reverse happens and all of the document text becomes gray with special attention focused on the headers and footers. This allows users to more fully grasp the concepts behind headers and footers and make it easier to manage these across their documents.

• Fields. Word 6.0 introduces a powerful new tool called Fields. These are similar in purpose to the 'Standard' glossary entries provided in Word 5.1, but conceptually they bear more resemblance to formulas in Microsoft Excel. The key difference is that fields in Word 6.0 are not limited to mathematical functions, and they are far more numerous than the glossaries provided by Word 5.1. Another key differentiation is that fields remain updateable once they are placed in a document, making them a powerful tool for building documents with calculated and linked information. Many of the features described in this document are enabled by Word fields.

Word 6.0 categorizes all of its fields to enable easy insertion.

• Bookmarks. Word 6.0 adds a powerful new feature, the Bookmark, which provides the ability to name a document location or a piece of a document. Bookmarks enable a number of different Word features, notably the ability to set up linked cross references, and they are also a invaluable tool when building macros that programmatically manipulate documents.

• Cross-reference. Word 6.0 has a new feature to create linked cross-references within documents.

• Footnotes & Endnotes. Word 6.0 lets you put footnotes and endnotes in your document at the same time, whereas Word 5.1 only allowed one or the other but not both. Word 6.0 also makes it easier to use custom footnote marks.

• Table of Contents. Word 6.0 enhances inserting a table of contents by providing seven different pre-defined "looks," check boxes to drive common formatting, and a rich preview facility. TOC's have also been enhanced other ways:

• TOC's can be built from arbitrary (not heading) styles or TC fields.
  
• TOC's provide an option to update page numbers only and preserve all local formatting.
  
• Page numbers in TOC's are dynamic jumps to the appropriate place in the document.

• Table of Figures. Word 6.0 will now generate a table of figures to track all of a user's Equations, tables, pictures, and any other tagged figure items.

Inserting a table of figures in Word 6.0.

• Caption. Word 6.0 lets you add captions to tables, figures, equations, or any other object.

• AutoCaption. Word 6.0 can save you time by allowing you to automatically add captions to selected objects.

• Table of Authorities (TOA). Word 6.0 now offers support for building TOA's, an essential feature for Legal users.

Word 6.0 now supports legal Table of Authorities.

• Insert Index. Word 6.0 includes a much more rich and flexible way of generating indexes within your documents.

Word 5.1 doesn't provide much help inserting an index.

• Word 6.0 provides an easy, graphical way to insert an index.

• Mark Index. Word 6.0 makes it easy to build powerful and flexible index entries. In contrast, Word 5.1 provided no user interface for this task, instead requiring the user to manually enter codes in the document.

Word 6.0 is powerful and flexible for inserting index entries.

• Number of Styles. Word 6.0 allows you to use up to 4,093 styles. Word 5.1 limited you to 254 styles.

• Capacity. Word 6.0 documents have a maximum size of 32 MB, up from 16 MB in Word 5.1. Word 6.0 stores OLE objects more efficiently, taking 1/3 less space per object.

• Spelling. The Word 6.0 spelling dialog box now includes a convenient button to undo your last change. This is very useful if you accidentally accept a spelling error. Word 6.0 also allows you to create custom foreign language dictionaries, whereas Word 5.1 only allowed custom dictionaries for the primary language. Finally, Word 6.0 includes an option to suggest only from the main dictionary, thereby making suggestions faster.

• Grammar. Just like the speller, the Word 6.0 grammar checking dialog box now also includes a convenient button to undo your last change, and you can now directly edit the sentence in the grammar dialog box. Also, the Word 6.0 grammar checker offers better explanations for flagged items. Finally, it now checks for a new category of errors-gender specific terms. For example, it might suggest using "chairperson" instead of "chairman."

• Hyphenation. Word 6.0 offers a number of improvements to its hyphenation engine. First, Word 6.0 allows you to set a variable hyphenation hot zone, whereas Word 5.1 had a fixed zone. Word 6.0 also includes a new option to limit the number of consecutively hyphenated lines. Finally, Word 6.0 has an AutoHyphenation feature which will automatically hyphenate your document as you type.

• Language. Word 6.0 lets you assign a language property to text. This property determines which language version of the proofing tools are used to check the text. Word even includes a (no proofing) category so that whole passages of text can be flagged to be ignored by the proofing tools.

Formatting & Layout

• Layered Drawing. Word 6.0 provides a powerful and tightly integrated set of drawing tools which allow you to draw anywhere on your page including above and below the text. Drawing objects can be grouped, aligned, snapped to grid, and layered. The integration between Word's text stream and drawing tools is so tight that there is no flicker even when typing with drawing objects above and below the insertion point. Drawing objects can be anchored to paragraphs, so that for example a circle used for added emphasis will move with your paragraph as you type.

• Drawing Toolbar. Word's drawing toolbar gives users fast access to its set of drawing tools.

• Watermarks. Using Word's drawing layer and Header/Footer View, it's easy to set up watermarks (e.g. Confidential) that appear below the text of each page.

• Callouts. Word 6.0 provides a revolutionary new drawing tool, the Callout, which can be used to add emphasis to different parts of your document.

• Character Styles. Word 6.0 has added to its style model by allowing the user to define Character Styles, styles which only affect character formatting without changing paragraph properties.

• Reveal Formats. Word 6.0 provides information about formatting by using the help icon to click on text. This is helpful for former WordPerfect® users who still want to see their 'reveal codes.'

The Word 6.0 Reveal Formats feature displaying text properties.

• Drop Caps. Just like Word 5.1, Word 6.0 allows you to easily create drop caps for visual effect. Word 6.0 improves on these with tighter integration and by making it easy to remove a drop cap.

• Change Case. The command to change cases in Word 6.0 has been enhanced so it can be driven directly from the keyboard. By typing SHIFT+F3, Word toggles between its different capitalization options. Word 6.0 is even smart enough to operate on the adjacent Word, whereas Word 5.1 required you to select the entire word.

• Bullets & Numbering. Word 6.0 makes it much easier than Word 5.1 to generate bulleted and numbered lists by offering an easy gallery of choices. Bullets and numbers are also now an integrated part of Word's styles, so they renumber automatically and create new numbers when the user types a RETURN.

• True WYSIWYG. Word's Page Layout view is now completely WYSIWYG, displaying every item on the screen exactly as it will print. Word does this with no flicker or cursor bobble as you type.

• Shading. Word 6.0 makes text with a shaded background much more readable than Word 5.1. Word 6.0 does this by dithering different screen grays together for a much more readable result.

• Insert Picture. Word 6.0 makes it much easier and more flexible to insert a picture.

• Link to picture. Word 6.0 allows the user to link to a picture without storing a cache of the image in the Word file. This heavily requested option helps to preserve disk space and minimize file size for graphic intensive documents.

• Format Picture. Word 6.0 provides a dialog box to allow easy access to picture properties such as scaling, cropping, and size, and this functionality is also available by directly manipulating the picture in the document. In contrast, Word 5.1 only allowed scaling and cropping via clumsy direct manipulation.

• Frames. Word 6.0 makes frames more powerful and flexible than Word 5.1 as shown below.

• Frame Borders. Word 6.0 provides users with a much more obvious interface for Frame selection and manipulation by placing a fuzzy border around a selected frame. To relocate the frame, the user simply needs to grab the border and drag it to the appropriate location. In contrast, Word 5.1 did not allow for direct selection or manipulation of frames, instead forcing the user into a separate Print Preview mode.

• Frame/Object Anchors. Word 6.0 provides users with the option to graphically relocate the anchor paragraph of any frame or drawing object by just grabbing the anchor icon (at left) for a frame or drawing object.

• Intelligent Underlining. The typographical behavior of Word 6.0 has improved considerably since Word 5.1. For example, Word now scales its underline thickness proportionally with the size of the font being underlined. This intelligent scaling also works appropriately with text formatted as SMALL CAPS and Strikethrough.

• Superscript and Subscript. Word 6.0 uses the information available in the font to do the proper thing when superscripting and subscripting. For example, the text is automatically shrunk to the appropriate size, and underlining is handled appropriately.

• Automatic Pair Kerning. Word 6.0 will take advantage of any pair kerning information available in the font. This can be triggered by a character or paragraph style for fonts above a certain size.

• Manual Kerning. Word 6.0 allows you to condense, expand, and raise/lower text by up to 1,637 points. In contrast, Word 5.1 limits you to 1.75 points, 14 points, and 63 points for these actions respectively.

• Adaptive Cursor. The cursor in Word 6.0 goes far beyond just bending sideways for italic text. Now it will change corresponding to the font size and even move vertically to track superscript and subscript text. This gives the user a better idea of how their text will be formatted as they type.

• Insert Symbol. Word 6.0 has improved the process of inserting symbols in a number of ways. For example, you can insert multiple symbols without closing the dialog box, and you can assign shortcut keys to any symbol. Word also displays the character number of the inserted symbol in the status bar. Finally, Word provides a list of "special" typographical characters shown below.

• Variable width columns. Word 6.0 allows you create a variety of column layouts including columns of different widths. Column widths can even be changed just by dragging and dropping column markers on the ruler.

Tables

• Table Headings. Tables can have header rows so that the first row(s) reappears on subsequent pages.

• Table AutoFit. Just like Microsoft Excel, Word 6.0 has the option to automatically size a table column to fit the available information. This can be accessed by choosing the AutoFit option in Table AutoFormat or by just double clicking on the line separating table columns. SHIFT double clicking will also AutoFit an entire selected table.

• Table Formulas. Word 6.0 has made it much easier to insert math into table cells, including an AutoSum™ feature like the one introduced by Microsoft Excel.

Inserting a formula in Word 6.0.

• Table rows break across pages. Word 6.0 allows table rows to break across pages. Before, table cells were limited to the height of one page.

• Table Borders. Word 6.0 is smarter about table borders and maintaining the desired look, even when adding new cells to tables. For example, if you have a thick outer border on a table, Word preserves this look as the table grows.

• Border Toolbar. Users frequently used the Format Border dialog box in Word 5.1. In fact, they used it so frequently that we realized the need for a toolbar dedicated just to borders.

• More Border Styles. Word 6.0 provides six additional border styles to the five offered by Word 5.1.

• Table selection and manipulation. Word 6.0 offers direct and ruler manipulation to resize tables column widths and ruler manipulation to resize row heights. In contrast, Word 5.1 only allowed ruler manipulation for column width adjustments. Also, Word 6.0 has removed many quirks in table cell selection and manipulation, especially when dealing with merged or split cells. Also, tables by default now remain the same total width when you drag a column-the rest of the columns just resize appropriately.

Migration & Coexistence

• Word 6.0 Converter. Word 6.0 includes a file converter which allow Word 5.1 to read files in the new format. This converter is available in the Word 6.0 box or as a separate kit free of charge. This makes it easier for mixed installations of Word users to coexist.

• Text & Graphics Converters. Word 6.0 recognizes an extensive array of text and graphic formats including: Word family (Word for Macintosh, MS-DOS, and Windows); Rich Text Format (RTF); Microsoft Excel 3.0 - 5.0; WordPerfect 5.x for DOS & Windows; WordPerfect 2.x and 3.x for Macintosh; Microsoft FoxPro/Borland dBase; Microsoft Works 2.0 - 4.0; RFT/DCA; MacWrite II; Text; Text with Layout; EPS; TIFF; PICT; WordPerfect Graphics (WPG); Windows Metafile (WMF); and Windows Bitmap (BMP).

• WordPerfect/DOS Conversion. Word 6.0 goes far beyond what was offered in Word 5.1 to offer unsurpassed import and export of WordPerfect 5.x for DOS/Windows files, including tables, pictures, fonts, formatting, and even import of equations. In fact, Word even converts many files better than WordPerfect for the Macintosh.

• Key Concepts for WordPerfect/DOS Users. Our studies have shown that there are five key concepts that dictate the success of WordPerfect/DOS users as they transition to Word. We have incorporated our findings into clear, easy to understand sections in our printed documentation to help people past these difficult concepts.

• Using the graphical screen in Word: Use of Word's toolbar buttons and other GUI elements are the foundation for a successful move to Word, yet many users are initially intimidated by these.
  
• Using a mouse to save time: Understanding how to use a mouse is invaluable.
  
• Selecting (blocking) the text you want to change: Understanding how to select text and them perform actions on that text is the most important revelation for WordPerfect users.
  
• Editing and formatting text: Understanding the different formatting models between the two products is vital. WordPerfect's text stream formatting model differs widely from Word's paragraph based formatting model.
  
• Correcting mistakes and troubleshooting: Understanding where to turn when mistakes occur and what tools to use for troubleshooting are vital. WordPerfect users need guidance in finding and using appropriate features in Word.

• WordPerfect/DOS Terminology. To help WordPerfect users learn new concepts, it's vital to speak to them using terminology that's relevant and meaningful. All of our tools in Word 6.0 are now heavily indexed using WordPerfect terminology, so that WordPerfect users searching for help can easily locate it. Going beyond this, where help content is specifically focused on helping WordPerfect users learn more about Word, we use WordPerfect terms to help them learn the equivalent terms in Word. One example of such a vocabulary switch is to tell WordPerfect users to "block" text instead of telling them to "select" text. This may seem like a tiny difference in focus, but usability testing has shown that this is crucial to help WordPerfect users become productive in Word much more quickly.

• Blue background, white text. Word 6.0 now includes an option familiar to WordPerfect/DOS users, the ability to view your document with a blue background and white text. If this is combined with other Word customization options such as Normal view, draft font, and Full Screen, the view is similar to WordPerfect or other MS-DOS based word processors.

• Full Screen View. Word 6.0 adds Full Screen view, designed to give an interface with fewer toolbars and other graphical elements. It also provides a toolbar to allow an easy return to a regular screen with menus and toolbars.

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