I spend a fair amount of time working on large documents in Microsoft’s Word and PowerPoint applications; almost every client uses Microsoft Office so it makes life a lot easier if I do too. Quality and consistency are important in training documentation but I’m not an advanced typist or graphic designer. Sometimes, this means I make a formatting mistake that I miss when reviewing and then only spot after the document has been printed.
This week, I found a great tip from Allen Wyatt at tips.net on how to search a document for text that is not shown a particular font (such as the default font I use in all my materials). Quick and simple, I have added this to my training documentation creation workflow to ensure consistent font use throughout each document.
As I am currently converting and rewriting much of my existing material from one font to another, this is a useful check-step to catch those pesky text boxes and footnotes that didn’t convert, as often happens with Microsoft default fonts like Times New Roman and Arial.