UIS Tip of the Week: How to Quickly Scan Your Document for Formatting Errors

Have you ever had to edit a long document, especially to check for formatting errors, and had to page through each page separately? What if you need to compare page 5 with page 15? Might be easier if you could see your pages together at a glance. And you can do this by lowering the magnification, or zoom, level in Print Preview mode to 10% or 25% of your document's actual size.

Using the lower 10 or 25 percent magnification can give you an "at a glance" view of the pages of your document. You can easily see if anything is out of kilter. You can also easily and quickly compare formatting between pages for inconsistencies.

 

To adjust the magnification, do the following:

1. Select Print Preview from the File menu.
2. Click on the down-pointing arrow that appears to the right of the current magnification, and then select 10% or 25%.
   
   
   
   

 

 

Sample document displayed at 10% magnification in Print Preview mode:

Same document displayed at 25% magnification:

Even though both views offer quite small views of each document page, and make it difficult, if not downright impossible, to view details of each page, the views do provide a good way to scan most, if not all, of the pages in the document at one time.

Of course, be sure to return your document to the higher magnification so you can read it for typos!