1. Multilingual Work

If you’re doing international business or working in bi-lingual documents regularly you can load up two dictionaries so that you won’t have to worry about making a typo accidentally.

Word even lets you switch between the two and have full paragraphs in different languages so it knows which dictionary to use. In order to use this function you have to choose the languages at install so you have everything you need.

2. Quick Format With a Touch

Using the new Format Painter you don’t have to waste time constantly formatting everything over and over by hand. The Format Painter lets you select formatted text and copy the formatting quickly and easily another area of text that you subsequently select.

Alternatively if you want to use the same formatting in multiple area you can simply double click the Format Painter and voila! Repeatedly formatting sections with the same style needn’t be time-consuming and lower your productivity ever again.

3. Do the Paragraph Shuffle

Time for some major rewriting and reordering? Well do it quickly and easily by picking up the whole paragraph and dropping it where you need it. In fact you can move it in any direction. Up and down are of course givens but you can also increase and decrease the indentation.

How to do this quick change? Simply hold down Alt+Shift and then press the arrow that corresponds to the direction you need the paragraph to move.

4. Make your own Shortcuts

There are tons of functions in all of the Microsoft Office applications and most of them haven’t got keyboard shortcuts. So how do you get to them quick and easy like? Simple, make your own shortcuts.

The Office 2007 suite gives you the ability to make your own Macros. Now you can take your most often used commands and set them to keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier. Click on Customize and then keyboard shortcuts. By scrolling through the categories list you can find the function you need and bind it your desired shortcut.

5. Get the Parts in order with QuickParts

If you find yourself making a series of documents where you need to create sections of similarly formatted text, you can use the Quick Parts. Like the Format Painter it gives a way to quickly format text but across multiple documents instead of just within one.

It allows you to create parts of documents, for example form fields, tables, watermarks, etc., that are then reusable in any document you are working on. On the Insert ribbon click Quick Parts and you’re on your way.

6. It’s Done When it’s Done

Now in Word 2007 you can definitely make sure a document is finished when you are finished with it. The new Prepare section of Office helps you get your all-important documents ready for digital distribution.

Several parts of this new area include:

• Properties – Add comments and categories to documents.Helps in organizing and tracking statistics.
  


• Inspect – Searches through documents for hidden text and other changes that might compromise the integrity of the document. Also allows you to remove sensitive items from them.
  


• Encrypt – This password protects your document making it safer and less suseptible to data theft. While no protection is perfect this will at least give your documents some security against idle browsers.
  


• Restrict – A way to prevent unauthorized users from looking at the document on specific networks.
  


• Digital Signature – This tells others that you are the verified source of the document and helps prevent malicious forgeries.
  


• Mark as Final – This creates a read only document. No further changes can be made to it. It also tells others that this is considered a final draft.
  


• Compatibility Checker – This new area helps make sure that there are no problems with your document and older versions of Word. A very useful tool if you work with a lot of people who have various versions of Word.
  

7. Design by Pre-Design

It’s a safe bet that someone came before you and has probably had to create the same sort of document that you’re trying to create now. Some of them have been gracious enough to create document templates for you.

This means you don’t have to worry about things like style and formatting because they’re already in place. You won’t need to take time looking into how others have done things or how they should be done.

If you don’t have the templates you need installed you might check here. Need more help? You can always check the templates help area of the Office Online site.

If you've never used these features before, try out a few and see how well they work for your document. They'll definitely help you out in the long run.