© 2011 Ugur Akinci
MS Word 2007 and MS Word 2010 come with a number of impressive page layout features that perhaps you generally don’t expect from Word since it’s not known as a “page layout application” (like InDesign, QuarkXpress, or PageMaker).
For example, did you know how easy it is to add a very stylish SIDEBAR to your technical document by using MS Word 2007 or MS Word 2010?
Here are the simple steps:
(Click to enlarge all images)
(1) Create a MS Word 2007 or 2010 document.
OPTIONAL STEP: Turn on your gridlines by selecting the GRIDLINES check-box in the VIEW tab. This will help you align the SIDEBAR more easily.
(2) Go to the INSERT tab and select TEXT BOX to display the pre-set text box designs:
(3) Click and select ALPHABET SIDEBAR text box (my personal preference) or any other sidebar text box you like.
(4) Pull the top and bottom of the text bar to make sure it fits the top and bottom of the grid:
(5) Change the background color, perspective, and other graphic features of your SIDEBAR text box by trying out many alternatives offered by MS Word’s formatting buttons and drop0-down menus:
(6) Enter your text both into the SIDEBAR and also the regular body text area on the right.
(7) Turn off your gridlines and here is your new and improved document:
Sky is the limit to give the SIDEBAR exactly the look you like. Play with it until you feel like you’ve got the right look. Good luck!
NOTE: Once you save the Word document you cannot delete the built-in sidebar since it is not really a part of the Word document but it is a “standalone supplement” to it.
This is great. But how do you DELETE the sidebar?
Charlaine, once you save the Word document you cannot delete the built-in sidebar since it is not really a part of the Word document but it is a “standalone supplement” to it.
Awesome, concise info. This really helped me with my sidebar battle – thanks.
Glad I could help. Best regards! Ugur
I love this idea of a sidebar inside of Microsoft Office document. It looks realy cool. Nice tip.
Glad you liked it. Thanks for reading TCC. Regards, Ugur
Very pretty, but what if you want something more dynamic? Let’s say that I want every page to have a sidebar. And, that sidebar should be mirrored for odd and even pages (appearance plus side of page). And, I’d like my sidebar notes to be linked to paragraphs in the main text, so that if I add three new paragraphs on page 11, I don’t have to shuffle the contents of the sidebars all the way through to page 42.
I see this sort of thing in books all the time – there must be a way to do it. (?)