Checklists

In Word 2000, if you need to create a checklist to, say, help you and your spouse plan for a trip, here's how to do it.. Create a bulleted list of the things you should take, using large, hollow squares for the bullets to serve as check boxes so that you can check off the items as you pack.

To create the checklist, just type in the list, highlight the text, and choose Format, Bullets and Numbering. Then click the Bullets tab and select the bullet style that has the boxes.

Earlier versions of Word may not have this particular bullet option. If that is the case, see below for ways to work around the lack of a suitable bullet.

StarOffice 6.0 onwards (including OpenOffice.org) will allow you to select a graphic from the gallery. There are a couple of workarounds that you can use:

• Set a hanging indent – Click Format / Paragraph and choose the Indents and Spacing tab. Then set an indent From Left of, say, 1 cm. Then set the First Line indent to a negative value. Or use the preset style Hanging Indent (Use Format/Stylist and then choose Hanging Indent).

   

  • Use square brackets separated by three spaces [   ], placing them at the beginning of the line. Press the Tab key after positioning the brackets. (If using justified text, make them non-break (hard) spaces (CTRL +space), otherwise the distance between the brackets will vary.)

  • Alternatively, you can insert a special character (Insert/Special Character in StarOffice/OpenOffice, or use the Windows Character Map if using a different word processor). Most fonts contain plain boxes, but Wingdings and Starbats have boxes with shadows. You may need to enlarge the box a bit by choosing a bigger font size. Copy the box to the clipboard by highlighting it and pressing CTRL+c. Then you can paste it in at the beginning of each line by pressing CTRL+v.

Although the above procedure may seem a little complicated, work through it a couple of times until it becomes routine and you will find that it is easier to do than to describe.