If you have used the Caption tool to label tables, figures or images in a document, you can insert a table of figures. A table of figures is commonly found in the appendix and lists the figures labelled in a document.

This can be used to list many items inserted into a Word document such as tables, SmartArt diagrams or even Excel spreadsheets. It can then be used to navigate straight to the page of that table, or Excel spreadsheet in the same way that people use a table of contents to jump to the correct chapter.

Insert a Table of Figures

Before you can use the Table of Figures feature in Word, you need to have labelled the figures by using the Caption tool (Check out how to use Captions in Word).

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I was reading the Metro newspaper home from work a couple of days ago and I noticed that they had used a drop cap letter in the first paragraph of a story. I had never noticed them use this before. This inspired me to create a tutorial on how to insert a drop cap in Word.

Inserting a drop cap makes the first letter of a sentence larger than the rest. The first letter typically spans 3 lines of a paragraph.

This technique is used in manuscript and novels written in beautiful calligraphy. You can try and create a similar effect in Word by formatting the font.

It is simple to insert a drop cap in Word and there are options to customise the drop cap character.

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I got a question yesterday asking how to play a movie and music at the same time in a PowerPoint slide show. This was used to play a funny song whilst a home video was playing.

To do this you need to insert the movie and the music file and then modify the animation to play the together.

Insert the Movie

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Have you ever been using Word and wondered where your top and bottoms margins have disappeared to. If so, this sounds like you are in Print Layout view and have the white space between the pages hidden.

I got a phone call from a lady the other day worried because she could not see the content of her header. She feared that it had mistakenly been deleted. Someone previous to her had hidden the white space and this was causing her no end of worry.

Fortunately, this is easily solved.

1. Click the Office button and select Word Options
2. Select the Display category from the left
3. Check the box labelled Show white space between the pages in Print Layout view

4. Click Ok

There is a shortcut for this too. Double click on the top edge of the page to quickly hide or show the white space of a page.

By default, music in a PowerPoint presentation will end as soon as the slide is changed. The good news is that this can be changed. In PowerPoint, it is easy to play music across the slides of a presentation.

1. Click the Insert tab of the Ribbon
2. Click the Sound button and select Sound from File
3. Locate the music file you want to use and click Ok
4. Choose the have the sound play Automatically or When Clicked

5. The music is inserted and the Sound Tools Options tab is selected. Click the Play Sound: list arrow in the Sound Options group

6. Select Play across slides from the list

The music will now across the slides of the presentation until the music or presentation ends, whichever happens soonest.