How to Keep the Format From Messing Up When You're Using Microsoft Word 2010. Document formatting consistency serves as a hallmark of professionalism in presentations, proposals and reports.

The default document settings in Word 2010 create documents with the necessary margins and justification, but you have to do a bit more formatting to create a document with full block configuration.

In Word 2010 and 2007, click Columns in the Page Setup box of the Page Layout ribbon. In Word 2003 click the Columns icon on the standard toolbar or choose Format > Columns.

Changing the default printer driver to PDF lets files created in Word 2010 format properly in Word 2007, but the only permanent solution is to revert to Word's old default format.

You copy something, paste it into Word, and suddenly it’s a formatting disaster. You aren't alone. I learned these paste tricks the hard way—so you don’t have to. Paste Special should be ...

If Formatting marks or or non-printing characters are turned on in Word, it displays hidden characters such as Tab characters, Spaces, Paragraphs marks, Hidden text, Optional hyphens, etc.

For those using older versions of Microsoft Word, or other non-Microsoft word processing software, the new .docx format can be a real pain. It has caused dissension in some workplaces. How to cope ...

Format Painter applies the same formatting to multiple text or objects. Learn how to use Format Painter in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

In Word 2003, this option’s on the Formatting toolbar. Figure I You can quickly remove a sticky border. Automatically sign up for TechRepublic’s 10 Things newsletter!