Writing your Thesis with Microsoft Word 2007

1. Writing your Thesis with Microsoft Word 2007 Christopher Cassa, PhD

2. Office 2007 • “Fluent User Interface” - the new Office Ribbon UI is atask-orientated GUI that features a central menu button (being built into Windows 7) • “Office Button” • Contextual Tabs, Live Preview, Mini Toolbar

3. New Version Types • There are new file types in Office 2007 – docx, xlsx, etc. The new ‘x’ refers to the XML formatting of the documents (“Office Open XML”). Also zipped, so smaller in size. • Your advisor can still open your files using Word 2003 if he/she installs the Compatibility Pack: • http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100444731033.aspx

4. Save as a PDF or in OpenDocument • Office 2007 allows you to save any document as a PDF – high quality and small size or to an OpenDocument file • Must download the adapter • http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en(PDF) • http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=169337(OpenDocument)

5. Styles and Formatting • Styles are the single best way to keep your formatting straight • You can select from default style sets that (i.e. Microsoft Word 2007 Default, Elegant, etc.) • You can modify existing styles within sets and also add your own, for example a “Code” style that is Courier New 12pt whenever you need to display code. • There are 7 headings in the default style set for automatic hierarchy in your document.

6. Demonstration of Picking Headings, Styles, and Formatting

7. MIT Thesis Header Page • This isn’t available through MIT, but this will save you a bunch of time if you do end up using Word for your thesis. • Download my version of the MIT Thesis Header Page and these slides at: • http://web.mit.edu/cassa/Public • MIT Thesis Guide: • http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/thesis-specs/

8. Description of Thesis Header Page and Header/Footer

9. Equation Editor • Big improvement over both Word Equation Editor 3.0 (default in Word 2003) as well as MathType (available for purchase, created by 3rd party provider) • Default equations, save your own templates • There is TeX-like input or a strong GUI (OMML) • Unicode Plain Text Encoding of MathematicsSupported

10. Equation Numbering • Office 2007 comes with a very nice equation editor and bibliography manager. However, it does not support equation and theorem number management. To work around this problem. I have developed a set of macros. You can download it here: • http://research.microsoft.com/~dongyu/Office2007EqnNumber.txt

11. Demo of the Equation Editor

12. Citation Managers • Word 2007 includes a built-in citation manager that handles most material types and formats you need to write a thorough thesis bibliography. • EndNote is a great alternative to this if your research group already uses it, you frequently need to add citations from external databases, or you need to customize your bibliography for different journals.

13. Citation Manager / Bibliography • Add a new reference • Insert a citation • Insert a placeholder (“Cite while you write”) • Manage Sources (Review citations, update) • Pick a Style (APA, Chicago, ISO 690, MLA, etc.) • Generate a bibliography automatically

14. Demo of Citation Managerand Bibliography Generation

15. Tables and Figures • Creating tables and figures can be done inside and outside of Word (External sources such as Excel, web sites, etc.) • Excel graphics that you import stay linked to the data as long as they are on the same cmoputer • Add captions to all of your figures and tables

16. Smart Art

17. Cross Referencing • Cross referencing is useful so that you don’t have to constantly update your figure and table numbers. • A cross reference is a dynamic field that serves as a pointer to a figure or a table in the document. • Automatically re-numbers correctly and helps you keep track of references.

18. Creating a Table of Figures • Using the captions you’ve created, you can automatically create some front-matter: • Table of Tables • Table of Figures • Table of Equations • These can be formatted to include the full names and numberings (or not) as well as page numbers.

19. Demo of Creating a Figure, Table Caption, Cross Referencing within the Text, and Using Smart Art

20. Other Cool Things • Thesaurus (Shift+F7) • Dictionary • Contextual Spell Checker • Translation Tools • Encyclopedia Access • Building Blocks