Category Archives: Tips

10 (Very Short) Web Writing Tips

If you want to improve your web writing skills, follow these 10 steps: Write in chucks. To create your hierarchy, outline the website as you would for printed material. Examine the site’s purpose and outline the main sections (e.g. words people use to navigate) and the links within those heads. Test it before it goes […]

MS Word: How to Create Vertical Text

In MS Word, you can add vertical text inside a text box, shape, callout, or table. If you want to create vertical text in MS Word, follow these steps: Right-click on the table cell that contains the text you want to change. On the Format menu, click Text Direction. Select the orientation you want. MS Word: […]

MS Word: How to Turn off Field Codes in Table of Contents

James asks, “In Word, the Table of Contents gives an error message: { TOCO “2-4″H Z T “HEADING 1,1″}. How do I fix this?” I think the problem is to do with Field Codes. If you want to turn off field codes from appearing your Table of Contents in MS Word, follow these steps: In Word, […]

How to Hire a Technical Writer

If you want to know how to hire a technical writer, read these guidelines. Jane R. in Texas asks for some tips on interviewing tech writers, especially when using assessment tests. Her company is about to hire their first full-time writer and they have not done this before. I’ve worked on both sides on the fence […]

How to Fix the Most Common Table of Contents Error in MS Word

Here’s how to fix the following error in Word when trying to open the Table of Contents. The error message is: { TOCO “2-4″H Z T “HEADING 1,1”} The problem is usually to do with Field Codes. Here’s a few suggestions. In Word, go to Tools > Options > View tab and click off Field Codes […]

7 Ways To Avoid Crashing Long Documents in MS Word

If you use MS Word to write documents, you might find the following tips helpful. I use Word to write documents up to 200 pages, even longer, and have managed to keep the document in good shape by following guidelines. Formatting — avoid cutting/pasting material directly from one file into another as this brings unwanted […]

How to write ‘engaging’ content for Government blogs

Summary: Writing for the web is very different from what you learn in school. The rules about grammar, structure, format, and narrative often don’t apply. In this tutorial we identify best practices on how you can improve your web writing, especially if you write for a company, corporate, or government agency. The University of Chicago “Most […]

Avoid Retyping Data into Word documents from Excel

Digital Trends offer a Financial Reporting Toolkit’s Formula Builder for MS Word. This add-in program that makes it easy to create formulas in Microsoft Word. Formula Builder walks you through the steps of building a formula. Click on the cell address you want in your formula and Formula Builder automatically determines the cell address for you. […]

10 Steps to Successful Bids

Business Owner’s Toolkit outlines the ten steps involved in making successful bids. “Although we are presenting the actions you need to take in a step-by-step fashion, it does not mean that they need to be done one at a time. They can be done simultaneously or in a different order, depending on your circumstances.” http://www.toolkit.com/small_business_guide/sbg.aspx?nid=P09_2000 […]