The Problem:

Format changes are always tracked if tracking is on. Sometimes it's useful to track them, but in the kind of work I do, it's usually not. Is there any way to make tracking these changes optional instead of inevitable?

The Solution:

No, but you can at least hide the marks for formatting changes. Choose Tools » Options, click the Track Changes tab, and select None from the Formatting drop-down list (or, in Word 2000, the "Changed formatting" drop-down list).

Toggle Revision Marking Quickly

The Problem:

Where the heck do I turn off that stupid document revision control thing?

The Solution:

Word offers you three ways of toggling Track Changes on and off:

• Press Ctrl+Shift+E.

• Double-click the TRK indicator in the status bar.

• Choose Tools » Track Changes (or, in Word 2000, choose Tools » Track Changes » Highlight Changes, check the "Track changes while editing" box, and then click the OK button).

Capture Only the Data from a Form

The Problem:

Okay, I've got my colleagues filling in the form nowand they're filling in all the fields more or less correctly, which is great. The problem is, I need to extract the data from the form and dump it into our database. I guess I could write a macro to do so, but I don't know how.

The Solution:

Nor do you need to. Word can strip the data out of the form for you. Open the form template (or document), choose Tools » Options, click the Save tab, and check the "Save data only for forms" box.

Once you've done this, Word selects the "Plain text" item in the "Save as type" drop-down list when the user displays the Save dialog box. When the user clicks the Save button, Word displays the File Conversion dialog box, allowing the user to check the encoding of the text file before saving it. The resulting text file, which is in comma-separated value (CSV) format, contains only the text entered in the form and the values of any checkboxes (1 if checked, 0 if unchecked).