Correcting errors using reviewing in MS Word. Selecting “Structure Mode”

It is generally accepted that if a person can simultaneously perform many different tasks, then this is a truly valuable employee. It turns out that today multitasking is equated with productivity. Let's figure out how being involved in several things at once affects productivity.

The ability to multitask means doing several things at the same time. Remember how sometimes, while drinking a cup of coffee, you managed to watch TV and look at the news feed.

However, for multitasking to be truly effective and bring positive results, you need to learn to concentrate and not get scattered. You can get high and consider yourself super productive, but in reality you won’t finish a single task you start. For example, this happened to me at the very beginning of my career, when I tried to do everything at once.

Developing the ability to multitask

Over time, I realized that the freelance life requires the ability to do a lot of things. Therefore, through trial and error, I found a few rules for myself on how to learn to multitask:

  1. 1 minute rule. Our brain cannot instantly switch from one task to another, so before moving on to a new activity, I give myself at least a minute break.
  2. It's easier to multitask if you record things that haven't been completed. If I decide to interrupt one task and return to it later, I make sure to mark it.
  3. I combine similar cases into groups. To keep my head from getting overwhelmed by the endless stream of things to do, I group similar tasks into blocks and move from one group to another as I complete them.
  4. Sequential multitasking. In order not to lose sight of anything, I try to complete every task. It is better to do fewer things, but with high quality, than not to cope with any.

What are the negative and positive effects of multitasking?

The ability to multitask gives a person some advantages:

  • With effective planning, multitasking really helps you get many more things done;
  • The ability to multitask develops thinking and the ability to concentrate on what is important;
  • Multitasking helps you make important decisions quickly. Sometimes this is much more necessary than carefully thinking through the issue and weighing all decisions.

At the same time, there is also a negative:

  • Often, when multitasking, people rely on quantity rather than quality, so in most cases things are done superficially;
  • While multitasking, it is difficult to concentrate and quickly switch from one task to another, so often;
  • If you plan tasks incorrectly, fatigue occurs when completing them.

How to learn to multitask without negative consequences?

  1. Planning. There is no need to rely on memory, tasks recorded on some media - ;
  2. One browser tab rule. Until we finish an important task in one tab, we don’t open a new one;
  3. A change of scenery. If you spend the whole day at your desk, you will get tired faster.

Now you know how to develop multitasking without harming productivity and quality of work. Just don't spread yourself too thin, do everything gradually and see it through to the end. I wish you success!

MS Word has a special operating mode that allows you to make changes and edit documents without changing their content. Roughly speaking, this is a good opportunity to point out mistakes without correcting them.

In edit mode, you can make corrections, add comments, clarifications, notes, etc. It is how to activate this mode of operation that will be discussed below.

1. Open the document in which you want to enable editing mode, and go to the tab “Review”.

Note: In Microsoft Word 2003, to enable edit mode, you must open the tab "Service" and select the item there “Corrections”.

2. Click the button “Corrections” located in the group “Recording corrections”.

3. Now you can start editing (correcting) the text in the document. All changes made will be recorded, and the type of edit with so-called explanations will be displayed to the right of the work area.

In addition to the buttons on the control panel, you can activate the editing mode in Word using a key combination. To do this, just click “CTRL+SHIFT+E”.

If necessary, you can always add a note to make it easier for the user who will work with this document in the future to understand where he made a mistake, what needs to be changed, corrected, or removed altogether.

Changes made in edit mode cannot be deleted; they can be accepted or rejected. You can read more about this in our article.

That's all, now you know how to enable editing mode in Word. In many cases, especially when working collaboratively with documents, this program function can be extremely useful.

So, the author created the text, saved it in a file with the beautiful name “Speech of the Nobel Laureate” and sent it to the GoreOtUma editorial agency for editing and proofreading. Next, two more people will work with the original author’s file: an editor and a proofreader, and then the author again. But these three (author, editor, proofreader) are not one hundred kilometers away from each other. What to do? How can they understand each other, how to explain themselves and how to get answers to questions? Should everyone re-read the text over and over again, irritably look for changes and transfer each other's edits to their files? In no case.

Smart people found themselves and came up with a special function in MS Word - review mode(or editing, or displaying all changes to the text). In general, call this function whatever you want, but thanks to it the author will see all the edits of the editor and proofreader, will be able to accept/reject this edit and answer questions while sitting at his computer and simply opening the file sent by the editor. And then everything that the author did in the same review mode will be visible to the editor and proofreader. The edits of everyone who works on the file will automatically be highlighted in a different color. Thus, all corrections by the author, editor and proofreader are saved in one file. This is very important to obtain a quality result.

How to enable review mode
on your computer

To begin editing your text, our editor will open the author file in MS Word 2007 and select the tab "Review"(in the upper area of ​​the toolbar) (Fig. 1).

IMPORTANT! All pictures can be enlarged!

Select the “Review” tab

We draw your attention to the following point: MS Word 2007 is in .docx format. If your document was created in MS Word 2003 (or lower), a warning about reduced functionality mode will appear on the screen. What to do? Save the file in MS Word 2007 with the .docx extension and continue working.

Thanks to working in review mode, the author will be able to see absolutely all corrections that the editor will make in the text. To do this, our editor will press the button Corrections(Fig. 2). Then all corrections will be automatically highlighted in the file (for example, in red).

Click the “Corrections” button

When the editor has made all the necessary edits and asked his questions to the author in special notes, he will save the file and send it back to the author. The file name will differ from the original one with a special note from the editor: “Speech of a Nobel laureate_1st edit to remove questions to the author.”

The author will open the file received from the editor in MS Word 2007 and will work in the same way as the editor: select a tab Review(in the upper area of ​​the toolbar), review the editor/proofreader's corrections. If he wants to make additional corrections, he presses the button Corrections, will add everything you need. In this case, the author's corrections will be automatically highlighted in a different color, for example blue. When the text returns to the editor for the 2nd (control) edit, this will avoid confusion.

How the editor will ask questions to the author
in review mode

It's very simple. When working with text in review mode, the editor will highlight a fragment of text, word or phrase (Fig. 3) about which a question has arisen:

Select a piece of text about which you need to ask a question to the author

Then in the top panel the editor will press the button Create a note(Fig. 4). In this case, the selected text fragment is highlighted in red, and a field for entering a comment appears in the margins. In addition, to the right of the button Create a note the button will become active Remove notes.

Creating notes in the text margins

In order to answer a question in the notes created by the editor in the margins, the author must similarly select the desired fragment, press the button Create a note. In the new window, in the field on the right, type the answer. The created note will also be a different color, for example green, and it will always be clear who asked what and who answered what. (We generally ask authors to answer editor's questions without creating a new note box, that is, immediately after our question. This can save space and avoid confusion.)

How corrections and editor's notes will appear in review mode

There are several options for displaying corrections and comments. You can select the most convenient one by pressing the button Callouts(it's located to the right of the button Corrections).

To choose how to display corrections in the text, click Callouts

After you press the button Callouts, a drop-down list of three options will appear (Fig. 6):

  • Show corrections in callouts— notes and corrections will be displayed as callouts in the margins.

This is what it will look like in text:

Option to display edits in margin callouts

  • Show all corrections in the text— all corrections and notes will be displayed directly in the text.

This is what it will look like:

Option to display edits directly in the text

  • Show only notes and formatting in callouts- only notes and formatting of the document will be displayed in callouts, and all other edits (spelling, punctuation, etc.) will be displayed directly in the text.

Multitasking has been highly praised by many project managers as the secret to achieving success at record speeds. But over the years, this claim has been dispelled.

Published studies aimed at refuting the claimed benefits of multitasking call on the business community to actually turn the multitasking process inside out to determine whether it is an ally or an enemy? How much can this affect personal professional qualities? Multitasking can also harm a business entity, regardless of whether it is a family business or a TOP-list company.

Do you still think you can get a lot of work done on your project when you're simultaneously answering emails, being at a conference, and helping a colleague understand a report they received? Read on and we'll look at 7 possible downsides to multitasking.

1. Losing focus

Workers and employers who frequently juggle between different tasks and projects end up having trouble separating the most important tasks from the unimportant ones.

They spread their time and attention so thin that they fail to extract important key information and experience from each task they work on. And while many project tasks are repetitive and even somewhat administrative, the long-term effects of multitasking can keep you from staying focused and collected.

Whether you're on the phone with a client or checking your emails, divide your time into small blocks of specific tasks and check them off your list one at a time.

2. Memory loss

Multitasking can be one of the most active activities of your brain. This can lead to overstimulation of cognitive function, which can ultimately lead to memory loss.

The rate of decline in memory sensitivity may be complemented by other predisposing factors such as age, environment, and existing health conditions. If you are not project-oriented, distracted by constant communications with intrusive colleagues, talking on the phone about topics unrelated to the project, or surfing social networks, then it will be difficult, or almost impossible, to return to where you left off. With too many external stimuli happening at once, the brain can't clearly differentiate between what's truly important to your project and what's a random cat photo.

3. Reduced performance

Competition in business basically comes down to the fact that the one who performs better wins. The success of a project also depends on the performance and personal qualities of the project manager. To be successful, you need to remove as many inefficiencies, or “bugs,” as possible from your business processes in order to get the most out of your time and team members.

Seamless operations in business processes, however, cannot be achieved with a lazy team. If your employees aren't performing at optimal levels, it's most often a problem with multitasking. They may hide behind the idea that juggling many projects at once will directly increase their productivity. It's time to put an end to this! Switching between tasks can be counterproductive to progress.

4. Disorganization

Team members begin to complete a new task while existing tasks are still on the unfinished to-do list. As a result, their workload increases throughout the week. New tasks arrive that further worsen the backlog of tasks that need to be completed.

An office without documents is not realistic for most people (or even desirable). Tasks bring with them notes, pieces of paper, printouts, and so on. Adding more documents to this situation creates a cluttered workspace, which ultimately translates into lost productivity.

5. Conflicting results

Multitasking may work by showing some gains, but it also has the risk of producing inconsistent results. The danger is that people don't really have the capacity to determine the importance of each task and prioritize accordingly.

At some point, you will be managing project team members by targeting the wrong items or tasks from all major aspects of the project. Ephemeral indicators of the success of the future project are created.

6. Increased stress levels.

While you may not necessarily feel it right away, the habit of task switching can add additional stress to your already busy work week.

As mentioned earlier, the brain receives a lot of input when multitasking, so it gets tired faster and has a higher risk of burnout. For example, being on an important phone call while simultaneously trying to create a spreadsheet for an upcoming presentation can put double pressure on you.

7. Increased expenses.

The financial consequences of multitasking can wreak havoc on your overall business's chances of survival. In fact, according to a KRONOS report, innovative UK companies are losing around £60 billion a year due to time wasted by workers doing unnecessary tasks.

This is due to a lack of creativity and the pervasive nature of distractions in the workplace. When employees lose focus, their companies fall short of their financial targets. This may affect your ability to achieve project goals, or deliver your projects within budget.

To avoid having to multitask, make sure your project team has a plan that guides everyone every step of the way enough to get the job done efficiently.

Encourage your team to plan their daily workload so they don't have to juggle multiple tasks in one day or week. Not only will this help your project as a whole, but individual project team members will also benefit from increased focus on their development and overall health.

Users of older versions of Word receive a message indicating reduced functionality mode when opening documents. The question arises: what does this limited functionality mode mean in Word, and how to remove it. After all, this reduces the ability to edit texts, does not provide access to new extensions, and, in general, creates inconvenience in work. In this case, there is no need to call a programmer for such a simple job as changing the format; after studying our recommendations, you will be able to cope with the task without spending a lot of time on it.

What does limited functionality mean?

The Word text editor, included in the Microsoft Office package, is constantly updated by developers: the capabilities are increased and the interface changes. This is reflected in the extension: Word 2003 has doc, and 2007/2010 has docx. Users sometimes, having become accustomed to one program, are reluctant to change it to a new one. But if you have to send or transfer files to another computer with updated programs installed there, problems arise. This is what happened with Word. Files created and saved in the 2003 format are opened in others only for reading, without the ability to edit the data. Users are advised that reduced functionality mode is enabled. Those created in 2007 did not open at all at first for those who had the usual Word 2003, or some add-ons did not work. The developers created a utility that allowed you to open documents created in Word 2007 through 2003. And yet, the limited functionality mode sometimes prevents it from working fully:

  • There is no access to create new documents.
  • Plain text can be viewed but not edited.
  • You cannot use advanced features such as export to PDF, new templates.

Reduced functionality mode in Word 2010, how to remove it - read below. In fact, disabling the mode is a simple procedure that does not require a lot of time or any special knowledge. Read our instructions and you can safely work with your texts.

Removing restrictions

You prepared the text at home on the old, but familiar Word 2003. You brought the file on a flash drive or other storage device to work, to your friends, and Word 2007/2010 was installed there. You need to make changes or additions before printing, but this is not available. So, you have a choice: apologize and offer to do everything later when you get home, or convert the document to take advantage of all the features provided by the developers.

If you chose the second option, then you need to know how to make it work. There are two possible ways here: with saving the source file or without saving.

  1. You decide to convert a 2003 document to a new format, but keep the original. You just need to resave with a different extension. To do this, go to “File” - “Save as”. In the “File type” line, select “Word Document” and enter a different name. An additional window will open with a warning that the new version will not open in Office Click OK, you can first check the “Don’t ask this question again” box so that this message does not appear next time. The system saves both options with different extensions.
  2. If you do not need to save the original version, then we do this: in the “File” tab, go to “Information”, there we click on “Convert”. You will receive a file with a docx extension, all new functions will work without problems.

Note: in the Word 2007 interface, instead of “File” in the upper left corner there is an “Office” button.

In Word 2013, the problem is solved in a similar way, the principle of operation has not changed.

If you have an old version of Word, limited functionality mode, how to disable it? Removing it does not require any special skills. You don’t have to contact specialists or pay for their services. Every user can easily handle it by following our recommendations.