Margin Release

[Guest]

I would like to type information to the left of the margin in Word documents
without having to change the margins or indents (i.e. with my mouse). Does
anyone know how to do this with a keyboard shortcut in WORD? I use Word 2002.
I used to be able to do this easily on typewriters. It could also easily be
done in WordPerfect by pressing Shift/Tab (I had WP9) .

I have seen two posts in this discussion group on this topic (by searching
"margin release"), but neither adequately answered the question.

This is a useful feature that was once standard in creating documents, but I
haven't been able to find it any version of Word that I've used.

 

[Jay Freedman]

See http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't believe that article contains any keyboard shortcuts for
"outdenting" text.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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all may benefit.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I interpreted the request as being for the style described under "True
marginal text", but I suppose it could be for an "outdented" style. In
either case, the style can be assigned a keyboard shortcut, so I guess I
should add a citation of
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AsgnCmdOrMacroToHotkey.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much for the response. I've come to suspect that Word doesn't
have a simple keyboard command to type directly in the margin areas (without
changing margins by "outdenting", creating tables, or inserting frames). It
used to be so easy to quickly insert text/numbers to the left of a margin on
typewriters (with "margin release"), or in WordPerfect (with shift/tab), or
on a lined piece of paper (simply by moving one's hand to the left). And, my
memory may be wrong, but I think old DOS versions of Word even used to be
able to do this and complaints were registered when newer versions of Word
for Windows were released.

As for why I want to do this... there are any number of reasons why someone
would want to make a simple keystroke to frequently put small annotations in
the margins. The most common reason for myself is that I enter notes into
Word from books that I'm reading for research (I like that I can use Windows
Desktop Search to index all of my notes). For each note that I make I would
like to be able to simply type the referenced page number for that note in
the left hand margin - beside the note. It seems silly to have to fiddle
with margins (outdent), tables, or frames every time I want to do this.

I was hoping that I just didn't know how to engage this simple command in
Word. But as suggested above, I suspect Word dumped this feature a few years
ago and never reintroduced it.

Thanks again for your responses and time.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

For what you are doing, a framed style would work well. You can assign a
keyboard shortcut to the style.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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all may benefit.