Configuring language tools is important because, if you are using a local version of Microsoft Word, the default settings for your document may not be for English, even though your document is in that language. In this section we outline how to configure the tools in your word processor and establish suitable default settings for an administrative document in British English. The following guidelines focus on the use of the Catalan version of Microsoft Word 2010.
To create a template with suitable default settings, create a new Microsoft Word document and then follow the steps below.
- Maximise the Estils panel on the Inici ribbon to visualise it. Position the pointer over the Normal style and an arrow for a drop-down menu will appear. Right-click on the style or left-click on the arrow to open this menu. Choose Modifica and the Modificació de l’estil dialogue box will open.
- Click on the Format button and then on the first item, Tipus de lletra, in the drop-down menu. Here you can choose the default font, its size and colour, among other things. Confirm any changes you make with the Acceptar button.
- Select Paràgraf from the same drop-down menu. Click the first tab to establish the line spacing, the paragraph spacing, the indentation, the justification and the tabulation positions. Click on the second tab to avoid single final lines at the top or bottom of a page, and to insert a page break before each paragraph with this style. Confirm all the changes.
- Select Llengua, choose anglès (Regne Unit) from the list and check the box No revisis l’ortografia ni la gramàtica. Confirm those changes. (The spell checker will only work if it has been installed. If in doubt about this, you will need to contact the computer service responsible for your hardware and software maintenance.)
- Click on the Anomena i desa icon (a diskette with a pencil). Near the bottom of the Desamentdialogue box you can give your document a name, such as admin-en-template1. Then open the drop-down menu for Tipus de fitxer and choose Plantilla de Word (*.dotx).
Your document format preferences are now saved in your template. To create a new empty document based on these settings, you can double-click on the template file in a Windows Explorer window, or create a new document based on your template through the Nou document dialogue. (Templates for many kinds of documents are also available on the internet. Such templates tend to focus on complicated formats, such as tri-fold brochures. For simpler documents with a single flow of text, it is preferable to create your own template, as we describe here.)
To check the spell-checker and grammar-checker settings, click on the blue Fitxer button and chooseOpcions to open the Opcions del Word dialogue box. Then choose Correcció from the menu on the left-hand side.
On the right-hand side of the box you can establish settings for document proofing. To turn off as-you-write spell checking, uncheck Revisa l’ortografia a mesura que escric. To turn off grammar checking, uncheckMarca els errors gramaticals a mesura que escric.
To choose what kinds of error the activated grammar checker will identify in your text, open the Estil d’escriptura dialogue box by clicking on the Configuració button. Uncheck boxes for items that you do not want the program to automatically correct. Do not forget the Format automàtic a mesura que escric tab, which is where you can set up the automatic treatment of quotation marks, among other things. When you finish, save your changes and exit the dialogue box. These Autocorrect settings are not saved into your template but rather associated with your profile as a user on that specific computer.
You can establish various other general settings through the Visualització and Avançades dialogue boxes in the Opcions del Word window.