Tips for keyboard speed

Keyboard Speed
Did you know that you can customize some of your keyboard settings?
In Windows XP, go to Start>Control Panel> Printers and Other Hardware, then Keyboard.
If you're using Vista, go to Start, Control Panel and look for the Keyboard icon and double-click it.
This will put you in the Keyboard Properties screen. Under the Character Repeat section, you can choose how long, or short, you would like before a character (a letter, etc.) repeats itself when you're holding down a key. Maybe sometimes you're typing along and a double letter somehow shows up. It may have done this because you held onto that one key just a little too long. Well, if that seems to happen to you a lot, you can change the repeat delay to a longer amount of time, so you will have more time to move onto the next letter or word. Just use the arrow slider to move in either direction.

Next, you can check on the repeat rate of your keyboard. If you sometimes hold down a key for soooooooooooooooooooo long, it may take forever for that one letter to repeat itself. You can fix that by moving the arrow slider to the Fast side. Or, if you like it slower, you can move the slide to the Slow side. Once you have it where you would like it, you can test the rate to see how fast, or slow, it will go.

The last thing you can do is play with the cursor blink rate. Depending on how fast you would like your cursor to blink at you when it's standing still, you can have it blink at a fast rate, a medium rate or even no rate at all.

When you've made all your changes, just hit OK and they will take effect.
if you haven't found that blank page of labels yet, allow me to give you a little push in the right direction.
If you've found the labels at all, then you already know the beginning...
In older versions of Word we need the Tools menu, Letters and Mailing submenu, Envelopes and Labels choice.
For those of you with Word 2007 you'll need to head to the Mailings tab of the Ribbon and click the Labels button located on the far left side in the Create section.
Next, we need the Labels tab. Word 2007 is has the same elements but is arranged differently. Now, I know it's habit to put an address in the Address box, but resist the urge just this once.
If necessary, use the Options button to select the correct label size.
Once the label size is set, all you have left to do is click the New Document button.
That's it! You're returned to Word with a blank page of labels ready for you to mix and match as much as you please!

Selecting Just a Portion

We all know that MS Word will try to help you out when highlighting text. In fact, if it thinks it's what you want to do, it will select an entire word for you even if your cursor started out in the middle of the word.
This can be a great time saver - or a great big headache!
Obviously, it all depends upon what you want.
Many of you probably know that you can turn this feature off in Word's options.
For users of older versions of Word. For Word 2007 people you need the Advance Options, Editing Options section and then uncheck "When selecting, automatically select entire word".)

But, let's face it - if we turn the feature off because it's bothering us right now then when we want it later we've got to go back and turn it on.
For my keyboard enthusiasts you're thinking about the Shift key combined with arrows to get the job done.
Excellent choice, but what about the people who like to use the mouse? Can they temporarily get around the whole word selection problem?
If you're a mouse user then here's what you need to know:
• First, when you start your partial highlight, be sure to place the cursor where you want the highlight to begin.
• Now start moving the mouse. Should the highlighting jump to include the entire word then stop and just slightly move the mouse back the other way.
• You should find that your selection went back to where you started and doesn't include the whole word again.

In older versions of Word you may have the same issue on the other end of your highlighting if you're trying to select a partial word from the left side. Just use the same trick and move the mouse back slightly to get just the letters you want.
Word 2007 you may find behaves a bit better. Once you stop the whole word highlight with the mouse movement it doesn't start up again during that particular selection.