Difference between revisions of "Thesis Formatting for MES"

Revision as of 21:10, 25 April 2011

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The following (and linked pages) are tips to help MES students build and format their thesis. These guidelines are based on the MES Thesis Handbook and suggestions from former students. This assumes Microsoft Word 2007 is being used, other versions may vary. If you have other solutions, even using different editors (such as open office), feel free to contribute!

Preformat your document before you start

Format a blank document with all the necessary components, sections, pagination, etc. This will save you much time in the long run. Also, using the format>tab feature at the beginning of each section, you can set appropriate (and consistent) tab stops for each section. Doing this before adding content can save time.

Don't copy and paste from another Word Document

Word transfers formatting often, which can clash with the formatting of your current document and screw up its formatting. This is hard to fix, but you can prevent it by copying text into a text editor (notepad, textmate, etc.), to strip out the formatting. Copy it again from there, and paste it into your current document.

Excel data gotchas

Excel and Word play nicely together but beware you correctly paste excel spreadsheets and graphs into Word. You can copy and paste directly from excel to word, so creating a word table, but it won't look like Excel. You can inset the worksheet as an object from file, and paste it as an object into Word or link the spreadsheet into word. This has pros and cons. The pro is you can edit your excel spreadsheet and it will update your document. The con is if you move or delete one of the files, the word document can get corrupted and a pain to recover. To run less risk of corrupting your data, copy and paste the excel data or create an image first.

Additional Help: word to excel]

Use Reveal Formatting

Whenever you find yourself in a bind, format>reveal formatting will show you exactly where you are and what formatting is being applied to the page you're on. For additional information it's also helpful to go to view>thumbnails to see where you are in the document.

Associated Word pages you might find useful

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 ====Preformat your document before you start====
-Format a blank document with all the necessary components, sections, pagination, etc.  This will save you much time in the long run.
+Format a blank document with all the necessary components, sections, pagination, etc.  This will save you much time in the long run.  Also, using the format>tab feature at the beginning of each section, you can set appropriate (and consistent) tab stops for each section.  Doing this before adding content can save time.
 ====Don't copy and paste from another Word Document====
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 Additional Help:  [http://www.ehow.com/how_2124997_insert-excel-data-word-2007.html word to excel]]
-====Do tabs right====
-Although you can set tabs on the fly and to specific paragraphs, if you have sections which have consistent tab requirements, it pays to set these first before you start adding content. By using the format>tab feature at the beginning of each section, you can set appropriate (and consistent) tab stops for each section.
 ====Use Reveal Formatting====