... MSWord - Just Tricks ...

I'm not sure what versions this works with, but it does it in Word 2000.

1. Open a MSWord document.

2. Type *with 2 spaces before the = sign: " =rand(200,99)" ... sans quotes.

3. Press Enter and wait 3 seconds.

4. Don't forget the 2 spaces before the = sign

It's taken on urban legend status, but it's actually a documented function used to create boilerplate documents with dummy text--- useful for testing formatting options, fonts, and such. Change the variables, and you change the length of the generated dummy text. For example, the command above creates 200 paragraphs, each with 99 sentences.

In English, the dummy sentence is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." The French version says (in French) "Serve this gentleman a beer and some kiwis." Spanish yields "The quick Hindu bat ate happy golden thistle and kiwi" or "The stork played the saxophone behind the bale of straw." These strange sentences contain all the letters of the alphabet (in their native language), and so serve well for creating dummy text.

1. Open a new document in Microsoft Word
2. Type "Unable to follow directions" (without the quotes)
3. Highlight the entire sentence you just typed
4. Click Tools; Thesaurus (or hit shift-F7 to open the thesaurus).
5. Read the right pane very carefully.

1. Start your Microsoft Word, type in "zzzz" (without the quotes)
2. Go to Tools, Spelling.

1. Type anything onto a page.
2. Press Enter.
3. Press Alt + Enter.

Word repeats the exact same thing on the next line of your document, and for as many lines as you keep pressing Enter.

Using the Alt + Enter shortcut is also a great way to enter the same information in different table cells-to wit:

1. Type something in one table cell.
2. Move to another cell.

Want to add a few mathematical symbols to your document? Want to impress the boss by code-naming unreleased products with Greek symbols? Want to just flat-out confuse your audience by presenting page after page of unintelligible glyphs? Whatever your motive, Word makes typing in Greek easy-by letting you switch to the Symbol font with one keystroke:

Press Ctrl+Shift+Q

You can also use the keystroke to convert selected text to the Symbol font. By the way, this is NOT a toggle. To switch back to the original font, do either of the following:

Press Ctrl+Spacebar, which removes all formatting not specified by the style. Select another font from the Font selector on the Formatting toolbar.

1. Activate your NumKeypad.
2. Hold down the Alt key.
3. Enter 248 on your keypad.
4. Release the Alt key.

I know, you can always go to your Character Map. But here's a way to just use your keyboard for some interesting results:

To type a vowel with an acute accent over it,
press Ctrl+' (apostrophe) and then type the vowel.

To type a vowel with a grave accent over it,
press Ctrl+` and then type the vowel.

To type a tilde over an a, n, or o,
press Ctrl+Shift+~ and type the appropriate letter.

To type an upside-down exclamation point,
press Ctrl+Alt + Shift + !

To type an upside-down question mark,
press Ctrl+Alt + Shift + ?