IT Support Notes

Have you ever wanted to add that extra something to your MS Word Documents.  You know, something to make your  hard work look more professional and well thought out.  Well, adding a water mark to an MS Word doc will do just that, and it’s a snap.

In traditional printing a watermark is A translucent design pressed on paper during manufacturing. The design is visible when the paper is held to the light. Watermarked images have a light faded out appearance which will not interfere with the text.  To add a watermark to a Microsoft Word document follow the steps below.  You can apply a watermark before or after you have entered the data in your document.

Steps to add an imaged watermark to your word document

1.  On the dropdown menu click Format > Background  then select ‘printed watermark.’

 2.  Click on the ‘Select Picture’ button and then browse on your computer for the appropriate image file.

Then click ‘ok’

That’s if your done!  The watermark should then display in the background of your document and it should be vertically and horizontally centered. 

But wait that’s not all.  You can also create a text based watermark.  Text based watermarks are great for marking documents as a COPY, CONFIDENTIAL, or DO NOT COPY.   To create a ext based watermark follow the step below.

Steps to add a text watermark to your word document

1. Same as step one above.Text Based Watermark

2. Select ‘Text Watermark’ from the Printed Watermark dialog box and then type in the text that you want to display. You can select the font type, size, color and layout for your text watermark. 

One more thing.  To remove your watermarks simply go back into the ‘printed watermark’ dialog box by going to the ‘format’ menu, ‘background’ and ‘printed watermark’ and select ‘no watermark’.

There you have it two really simple way to make you MS Word documents stand out.  Now get back to work and use this tip to impress your boss. 

This is just a short FYI.  On April 21, 2008 Microsoft released SP3 for it’s Windows XP operating system.  It released the service pack to computer manufactures who will include it computer now in production.

Next Microsoft’s will release XP SP3 to TechNet participants.  Members of TechNet will be able to access the service pack on April 29 via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center.  April 29 is also the date which Microsoft plans to release online documentation for SP3.

Those of us who use Windows XP at home (Home Users) can expect to be able to install  SP3 sometime this summer.   At that time Home Users should have the ability to install XP SP3 throught the operating systems automatic update feature.   According to Microsoft there is a soft release date of June 10 for home users.

Windows XP SP3 is expected to be a somewhat light upgrade. Features are said to  include a network access protection update, to support features in the Windows Server 2008 platform, plus an improved packet packet monitoring.  If you would like more information Microsoft has made available a white paper (PDF) on the topic.

Service Pack 3 for Windows XP will be the last service pack for the XP operating system.  The next operating from Microsoft may be available as soon as 2009.  Windows 7 which will be a replacement for Windows Vista is supposed to be more scalable meaning there might be a version for mobile devices, automobiles, and traditional personal computers.