People often ask me how to create various types of specialized documents in Word. The irony is that sometimes a serious shortcut is just sitting there and people don’t realize it. For example, suppose you want to create a calendar in Word. You could go through and create a table by hand and painstakingly format it. Or you could just use the built-in wizard.
For example, in Word 2000, to create a calendar choose File|New. Instead of just blasting through and clicking the OK button like you normally would, click the Other Documents tab in the Templates dialog box. You should see the Calendar Wizard icon. If the icon isn’t there, it means that the wizard wasn’t installed when you installed Word. In that case, you need to find your Office CD and click the Add/Remove icon to add all the wizards to Word.
Assuming the Calendar icon is there and working, click to select it and then click the OK button. The wizard appears on your screen. Now click the Next button to forge ahead through the wizard. First you are asked to select a design style. Pick one and then click the Next button. Then you have to decide on a page orientation and whether you want Word to leave space for a picture. Next you choose the month and year you want displayed on the calendar.
After you’ve made your choices, you click the Finish button and Word generates a calendar for you. Remember that it’s really just a Word table, so you can reformat it just as you would any other table. After discovering the ease of creating a calendar, you also may want to experiment with some of the other built-in wizards. They are all there just waiting for you to try out.