Hands on: Acrobat vs XPS

With Firefox as the default browser, you’ll get an error message saying that Windows can’t find the file (yes, the one you just double-clicked on) followed by Firefox asking you what to do with the file, but doing nothing.

So, either set IE as your default browser temporarily, or start IE and drag the XPS file into the IE window, or go to the IE File, Open dialogue and browse to the XPS file on your disk.

On a less cheerful note, having installed the XPS-for-XP viewer I found that the 316-page document from Microsoft repeatedly crashed it. Although it’s purely a reader, it does have a search feature and a rather neat zoom slider control such as Word 2007.

So, whereas the PDF creator is a long-overdue improvement to Word, the XPS format has a long way to go to rival PDF. In contrast to Adobe, which seems to have a download link to its reader wherever you see a PDF on a website, Microsoft simply isn’t trying hard enough. As a matter of curiosity, XPS files ­ like DOCX ­ are really ZIP files. Change the extension of one from XPS to ZIP and you’ll see they consist of several subfolders and files.

All this still leaves those with earlier versions of Word out in the cold when it comes to PDF creation. As mentioned earlier, one solution is to use a different word processor or office suite, but if you’re stuck with Word 2003, for example, then there are alternatives. The daddy of them all, for heavy-duty PDF creation, is Adobe Acrobat 8, which comes with a suitably heavy-duty price tag. However, there are several cheap or free PDF creators, as well as online services to which you can upload DOCs and download PDFs.

Personally, I’d prefer to keep the job in-house and rather like PrimoPDF 3.1, which is free and easy to use. Like the XPS Document Writer it appears as a printer on your system, so can be used by any application. You’ll find it at www.primopdf.com.

Wordpad undocked
If you’re reading the Word Processing column, you probably don’t rely on Wordpad to view and edit DOC files. It can, however ­ though it loses styles when saved ­ so it’s useful to have as a fallback. Be warned that the Vista version of Wordpad no longer reads DOCs, though it still handles files in the RTF format. So if you’re Wordless in Vista you can download the Microsoft Word Viewer. Bear in mind it will only view, not edit, DOCs. If you need something free and more versatile, try Open Office.

Stylish shortcuts
While I tend to be a dedicated mouseaholic, there are times when keyboard shortcuts make much more sense than struggling with Word’s menus or buttons. Saving a document with Control & S is second nature after typing a few sentences, and it’s much more reliable than Word’s Autosave feature ­ speaking of which, it’s a shame this can’t be set to a number of characters typed rather than a time ­ I’m sure we all don’t type at a consistent rate.

Another little niggle is that there’s no visual clue to show whether a document has been changed since the last save. Wordperfect ­ and other Corel products ­ grey out the Save button if changes haven’t been made. It’s theoretically possible to create a Word macro to do this, but it’s no simple matter; the macro would have to test the ‘dirtiness’ of the document ­ that is, unsaved changes ­ at regular intervals, so it would probably be more trouble than it was worth. So I’ll carry on with Control & S.

Apart from the built-in shortcuts, it’s possible to assign your own key combinations, not just to commands, but also to other items, such as macros and styles. I find this last a great time-saver, and you can do it in any version of Word, including the uncustomisable 2007. Here, you get at the dialogue from O ffice button, Word Options, Customise.

There’s another Customise button at the bottom of the screen which takes you to the keyboard dialogue. In earlier versions, it’s at Tools, Customise, Keyboard button. If you scroll right down the left pane of the Customise Keyboard dialogue, you’ll see, after the menu (or tab) entries and ‘All commands’ you can assign keystrokes to macros, fonts, autotext, symbols and s tyles.

First make sure the template you want to store the assignments in is selected in the ‘Save changes in:’ box. Select Styles, pick a style from the right pane, click in the ‘Press new shortcut key’ box, press the key combination of your choice. You’ll be warned if the combination is already assigned, and you can either select a new combination or override the current assignment. Click the Assign button, then repeat for other combinations. I use Alt & 1, 2 and 3 for Headings 1, 2 and 3, and Alt & 0 for body text.

There’s a further time-saving refinement you can make. If you always, for example, revert to body text or normal after a certain heading level, you can automate this. Modify the heading level style and set the ‘Style for following paragraph:’ to the desired style. When you type your heading and press Return, you’ll be in the ‘following…’ style without having to do a thing.