Turn Off The Magnifier To Edit In Word 2007’s Print Preview Mode
Over at the How-To Geek’s home away from Lifehacker, blogger Mysticgeek points out a Word 2007 tip many of us had no clue about—you can edit a document in Print Preview mode by turning off the “Magnifier” switch.
Print Preview is how you get a look at what a document will look like in actual paper form, and can reveal margin problems, font discrepancies, and other problems. Problems we’d thought, until this morning, you had to switch back into an editing view to fix, then return for the overhead view. Un-check the “Magnifier” option in the Print Preview ribbon, however, and you’ll get access to your words again.
You won’t have your full ribbon of editing tools handy, but you can access most of them through the right-click menu, and make basic typing changes to your heart’s content, all while keeping an eye on what the page actually looks like.
Edit Microsoft Word 2007 Documents in Print Preview [the How-To Geek]
- Next Post: Shut Down Your Windows PC Remotely From Linux »
- « Previous Post: Integrate Everything Search Tool And Launchy
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
If only Excel had this option, along with better zoom options (your choices now are small or slightly smaller).
bobbo33
@mahumphrey: The print preview mode also shows you whether your text etc. is outside of the printable area. The normal print layout doesn't show that.
ssj4Gogeta
Would someone care to explain the point of such a tip? The default editing mode for Word 2007 is "Print Layout" which the tooltip describes as "View the document as it will appear on the printed page". It would seem then that this only serves to zoom out and reduce your editing options.
mahumphrey
that killed my short cut typing; heres- CTRL+F2, ALT, p, g
@IOStreamCTO: While I appreciate the difficulty involved in making sure you get credit for the content you write online (we've been ripped off plenty, too), sometimes it's really just a matter of course that someone will also cover something you've also done.
Regarding the How-To Geek and his blog, I've spent enough time with the Geek that I trust his integrity in these issues. Sometimes people simply cover the same tips. (In this case, years apart.)
To answer your point that writers contributing to Lifehacker should credit the sources of their material: They do. Every post on Lifehacker that we found via someone else includes a via link.
Best,
Adam
Spindlefox is right, I just did it in 2000. Neat tip!
mfaerber
This is hardly new functionality - you can do this in Word 2002 and maybe even older versions - just click on the magnifier icon in print preview, and edit away!
Spindlefox
This article was published by several sites, including in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. The "Mystigeeks" article is a reprint of a Tech-Recipes article published April 27, 2007. Link to original article is:
[www.tech-recipes.com]
I have found this to be a recurring problem on the How-To Geek's blog for both himself and Mystigeek. Most of the articles I read are directly lifted from the MSKB or other sources with no credit given to the original author. I realize that bloggers writing for Lifehacker are simply trying to make a living and I take no issue with that fact. My point is simply that those writers contributing content to Lifehacker should credit the sources of their material as opposed to presenting a post as original content.
IOStreamCTO
Wouldn't changing the view settings to full page be essentially print preview? That way you'd have all the tools to edit?
In the Word 2007 Magnifier mode is very handy if you want to use Print Preview simply to make sure that your document is fit for printing. But if you have a high-resolution monitor, you may want to edit in Print Preview as well.
@ssj4Gogeta: Of course the normal print layout will show that. How else could it reasonably be described as "...it will appear on the printed page"? I can open up Word 2007, insert a large picture expand the margins to stretch the limits of the printable area or do anything else and it looks exactly the same in the print preview only zoomed out and with less editing options.
mahumphrey
Seriously, you didn't know this? I've known this since I was five an learning how to write. It's been on every version of Word I've used, which has been whatever was common back in the late 90s to 2003.
dunvi
Works in Word 97 too - yes there are some users still on Office 97 and NT4!
quadrupole
I've been doing this with print preview since Word 95. So it works in Word 95, too, if anybody still uses that nowadays...
smile17
@mahumphrey: Is that always the case with 2007? In Word 2002 & 2003, if you change printers while working on a document, the "Print Layout" may not change, but "Print Preview" does, more often than not. I see this all the time when I switch from my default printer (local) to the network printer, and occasionally when sending docs to my colleagues via e-mail (Layout appears fine, but pagination and margins change upon printing). It is probably due to the varying specs of the printers in use, and I doubt 2007 handles this any differently (although I don't know for certain). As such, Print Layout would be better described as "a reasonable approximation of how the document will appear on the printed page". Therefore, this is a valid tip.
hepatace