India’s trade routes and intra-Asian ties flourished long before Europeans arrived, William Dalrymple outlines in The Golden Road.
If the 19th century was defined by European power, and the 20th century by the rise of the US, the 21st century is increasingly understood to be the “Asian Century” — one in which the global enter of gravity is shifting yet again. And if you accept that assertion, the next logical question is: Who will lead the Asian Century? The two natural candidates are the region’s historical powers, China and India, which were the world’s largest economies from 1 A.D. to 1820, before the rise of the industrial west. They are once again among the planet’s preeminent economies.
By most measures, China is currently outperforming India. Its $18.5 trillion GDP is more than four times larger than India’s, and it accounted for $6.64 trillion in global trade in 2023 — 11% of the global share, to India’s 2.7% ($1.64 trillion). Its military is mightier, and it has greater influence in international affairs. In 2013, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative, an attempt to revive the ancient web of trade routes, known as the Silk Road, that connected the Middle Kingdom to all parts west.
But in his masterful new work, The Golden Road (Bloomsbury, April 29), historian William Dalrymple argues that India has both the potential and the historical track record to catch up with its former peer to the northeast. Citing compelling evidence, Dalrymple notes that many of the great advances in human history originated from Indian civilization, particularly in mathematics (including the concept of zero), religion (Hinduism and Buddhism) and philosophy, astronomy, medicine, literature and art. He argues that the world overlooked India’s vast influence, and that trade routes emanating from India may have had an equally substantive impact on Asian and world history as the Chinese silk route.
India was “a crucial economic fulcrum, and civilizational engine, at the heart of the ancient and early medieval worlds,” Dalrymple writes, describing the country as “one of the main motors of global trade and cultural transmission.”
The Golden Road fills an important gap in our understanding of the intra-Asian relations that predated the arrival of European colonizers. While one modern conceit is that globalization is a recent development, the book demonstrates how much of Asia was for centuries connected through a common lingua franca, Sanskrit. Ideas of Hindu-Buddhist kingship and cosmology were prevalent throughout these regions; Buddhism also took root in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. In the Middle East, Indian ideas in mathematics and medicine led to further advances during the Islamic Golden Age. From the Arab world, these Indic concepts were transmitted to Europe, where they also helped spur the European Renaissance.
Dalrymple suggests the world overlooked India’s influence because it was “undermined, misrepresented and devalued” by Victorian Indologists such as Thomas Babington Macaulay. In 1835 Macaulay wrote that it would be “no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England.”
But that was then. To compete with Beijing now, New Delhi needs to develop economic muscle, though it can also draw a great deal of competitive soft power from the history of its “Golden Road,” the ancient routes that connected India to the rest of Asia and the wider world. Dalrymple outlines three ways for India to leverage its history to enhance its competitive position vis-à-vis China and stake its claim to leadership of the Asian Century.
The first is to rediscover the great virtues of openness to international trade. While India’s current economy may in relative terms be more closed than that of China, Dalrymple shows that India’s trade with the rest of the world matched, if not exceeded, that of China for millennia. This resulted in prosperity at home, which in turn enabled Indian culture to shine.
“In the crucial period between the end of antiquity and the onset of the high Middle Ages, you can make [a] case for India being the cultural and intellectual center of Asia, influencing and changing the course of religious, artistic and cultural life,” Dalrymple writes. “This after all was why [Chinese scholars] risked their lives to make the dangerous journey to what was then the Harvard or MIT of ancient Asia: the great Buddhist university of Nalanda.”
Many Indians believe that the country’s large domestic market means it doesn’t need international trade to grow faster. While few officials state this view out loud, the Indian government’s actions indicate an underlying belief in continued reliance on domestic consumption for economic growth, encouraging companies to focus on the Indian market rather than exports. India backed out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in 2019, for fear of Chinese goods flooding the domestic market. It is in no hurry to enter into free-trade agreements with Western countries — despite long-standing negotiations with the UK and the European Union — apparently because it wants to protect sensitive sectors like agriculture, which employs close to half of the working population.
This is short-sighted. If China is leveraging the $100 trillion global economy to grow while India relies on its $4 trillion domestic market, India will remain at a disadvantage. Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor to the Indian government, argued in a recent interview with the Financial Times, “You cannot do [it] based on domestic demand and a domestic market.”
As for fears of being swamped by imports from China, a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics shows that India’s economy would in fact gain $60 billion annually from more openness. It also makes economic sense to encourage foreign investment, particularly in the manufacturing sector. In theory, New Delhi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative — which encourages manufacturing in the country — is meant to do just this. In practice, it has been slow in encouraging investment.
The second takeaway for India’s current rulers from their country’s history is the importance of India’s traditional links with Northeast Asia. The most successful and dynamic economies of Asia are now found in that region, with Japan, South Korea and China outperforming the rest of the continent. As Dalrymple notes, a significant part of the DNA of their civilizations comes from India.
These days, there are deep suspicions between China and India, just as there are between China, Japan and South Korea. Geopolitical differences explain these suspicions, but their shared cultural history might help overcome them. While Dalrymple’s book pits India’s Golden Road against the China-dominated Silk Road, the way forward for both countries may well be a concomitant and cooperative revival of both ancient routes, repurposed for economic and scientific cooperation through the Global South.
China has launched its Health Silk Road initiative — through which it aims to improve international cooperation in health care — and India has been providing pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to the developing world at low or no cost, simultaneously sharing its expertise. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the West was reluctant to share vaccines with the Global South, China and India stepped up and filled the gap. There is great opportunity for them to continue to collaborate in enhancing health-care access, especially in the poorer countries of the Global South.
The third, and arguably best, opportunity for leverage in India lies in Southeast Asia, the region most influenced by Indian civilization, as Dalrymple documents in great detail. One of the curious anomalies in history is that even though Southeast Asia is geographically closer to China, nine of its 10 countries have an Indic cultural base, most obviously expressed in religious and cultural practices. Only Vietnam has a Sinic base.
That cultural base was built on economic ties. In the 4th and 5th centuries, when western supplies of gold dwindled due to the fall of the Roman Empire, Indian traders turned to Southeast Asia. Their ships sailed to what would eventually become Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The traders also exported their faith, seeding Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms across the region. Few Indians today know that one of the strongest Hindu kingdoms in history emerged in Southeast Asia.
Although Hinduism is now a minority faith in the region, its cultural influence lingers: The Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are still performed in many corners of Southeast Asia. Buddhism is the largest of the major world religions in six of the region’s 10 countries. Given these ties, there should be a close cultural relationship between India and Southeast Asia matching the cultural closeness between Europe and the US. But no such closeness exists.
One reason is that India became part of the ‘Persianate World’ during the second millennium (as the historian Richard Eaton demonstrates in his writings) and turned away from Southeast Asia. Another reason is present-day India’s relative economic and political insularity, particularly in comparison to China.
If India is to provide leadership in the Asian Century, the most natural starting place would be Southeast Asia. And the first step would be to restore the close trading links of old. This would require catching up with China, no easy task. As of 2023, the most recent year for which definitive figures are available, Southeast Asia’s goods trade with China was $697 billion, almost seven times larger than that of India. But as recently as 1980, Indian goods trade with Southeast Asia was $1.3 billion, only half that of China’s.
India is expected to become the third largest economy in the world by 2030. Given that it was one of the poorest countries in the world upon achieving independence in 1947, this would be a remarkable achievement. But to create opportunities for its enormous population, it needs to do more. In that respect, Dalrymple’s book couldn’t be more timely. The Golden Road is not only a reminder of a glorious past; it can also inspire Indians to match the sterling record of their ancestors in engaging a new rejuvenated continent — and claim the leadership of the Asian Century.
The post History Shows How India Can Catch Up With China appeared first on VVDesigns.]]>Can gravity, pressure, and other elemental forces save us from becoming a battery-powered civilization?
The German word Dunkelflaute means “dark doldrums.” It chills the hearts of renewable-energy engineers, who use it to refer to the lulls when solar panels and wind turbines are thwarted by clouds, night, or still air. On a bright, cloudless day, a solar farm can generate prodigious amounts of electricity; when it’s gusty, wind turbines whoosh neighborhoods to life. But at night solar cells do little, and in calm air turbines sit useless. These renewable energy sources stop renewing until the weather, or the planet, turns.
The dark doldrums make it difficult for an electrical grid to rely totally on renewable energy. Power companies need to plan not just for individual storms or windless nights but for Dunkelflaute that stretch for days or longer. Last year, Europe experienced a weeks-long “wind drought,” and in 2006 Hawaii endured six weeks of consecutive rainy days. On a smaller scale, factories, data centers, and remote communities that want to go all-renewable need to fill the gaps. Germany is decommissioning its nuclear power plants and working hard to embrace renewables, but, because of the problem of “intermittency” in its renewable power supply, it remains dependent on fossil fuels—including imported Russian gas.
The obvious solution is batteries. The most widespread variety is called lithium-ion, or Li-ion, after the chemical process that makes it work. Such batteries power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles; they are relatively inexpensive to make and getting cheaper. But typical models exhaust their stored energy after only three or four hours of maximum output, and—as every iPhone owner knows—their capacity dwindles, little by little, with each recharge. It is expensive to collect enough batteries to cover longer discharges. And batteries can catch fire—sites in South Korea have ignited dozens of times in the past few years.
Venkat Srinivasan, a scientist who directs the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS), at the Argonne National Laboratory, in Illinois, told me that one of the biggest problems with Li-ion batteries is their supply chain. The batteries depend on lithium and cobalt. In 2020, some seventy per cent of the world’s cobalt came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Unless we have diversity, we’re going to be in trouble,” Srinivasan said. Any disruption to the supply chain can strongly affect prices and availability. Moreover, a lot of water and energy are required for mining the metals, which can cause environmental damage, and some cobalt-mining operations involve child labor. Experts doubt that Li-ion prices will drop more than thirty per cent below their current levels without significant technological advancements—a drop that is still too small, according to the Department of Energy. We need to expand our capacity; by one estimate, we’ll require at least a hundred times more storage by 2040 if we want to shift largely to renewables and avoid climate catastrophe. We may somehow find clean and reliable ways to mine, distribute, and recycle the ingredients for Li-ion batteries. And yet that seems unlikely. Although we usually think about renewable energy in terms of its sources, such as wind turbines and solar panels, that’s only half the picture. Ideally, we’d pair renewable energy with renewable storage.
We already have one kind of renewable energy storage: more than ninety per cent of the world’s energy-storage capacity is in reservoirs, as part of a remarkable but unsung technology called pumped-storage hydropower. Among other things, “pumped hydro” is used to smooth out spikes in electricity demand. Motors pump water uphill from a river or a reservoir to a higher reservoir; when the water is released downhill, it spins a turbine, generating power again. A pumped-hydro installation is like a giant, permanent battery, charged when water is pumped uphill and depleted as it flows down. The facilities can be awe-inspiring: the Bath County Pumped Storage Station, in Virginia, consists of two sprawling lakes, about a quarter of a mile apart in elevation, among tree-covered slopes; at times of high demand, thirteen million gallons of water can flow every minute through the system, which supplies power to hundreds of thousands of homes. Some countries are expanding their use of pumped hydro, but the construction of new facilities in the United States peaked decades ago. The right geography is hard to find, permits are difficult to obtain, and construction is slow and expensive. The hunt is on for new approaches to energy storage.
Quidnet, a Houston-based startup, is one of many companies exploring the possibilities. Last month, I sat in an F-150 King Ranch pickup with Scott Wright, its vice-president of operations, and Jason Craig, its C.O.O., as we drove to one of its test sites, on a farm west of San Antonio. Fields and billboards whizzed by as Craig explained, from the back seat, that Quidnet had patented a new kind of pumped hydro. Instead of pumping water uphill, the company’s system sends it underground through a pipe reaching at least a thousand feet down. Later, the system lets the Earth squeeze the water back up under pressure, using it to drive generators. Wright and Craig are veterans of the oil and gas industry, and Quidnet’s technology is like a green riff on fracking. In that technique, fluid is injected underground, where it builds up pressure that fractures rocks, releasing natural gas. Quidnet uses some of the same equipment and expertise, but with a different goal: the water is meant to be sandwiched between layers of rock, forming underground reservoirs that can be released on demand.
As we drove, I asked about the blackouts Texas experienced in February of 2021, when a winter storm shut down gas plants for several days and left millions without power. More than two hundred people died. The crisis had many causes, including the fact that Texas is the only state whose power grid isn’t connected to grids in other states. “We were pulling buckets of water out of the neighbor’s pool to get toilets to flush,” Wright said. “It definitely screams for some way to store power to lessen the burden on the grid in times like that.”
The artificial underground reservoirs created by companies like Quidnet are known to engineers as “lenses,” because of their shape. (“I say whoopee cushion and people don’t like it,” Craig said.) Initially, Quidnet encountered skepticism about its ability to form lenses of the right size and shape. By the time I visited, however, it had successfully completed multiple pumping cycles in Texas, Ohio, and Alberta. The company has received thirty-eight million dollars in private and government funding, including contributions from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, established by Bill Gates.
Quidnet has benefitted from an energy-storage gold rush. In 2018, the Department of Energy awarded thirty million dollars in funding to ten groups, including Quidnet, through a program called Duration Addition to electricitY Storage, or DAYS. Before leaving office, President Donald Trump signed into law the Energy Act of 2020, which included the bipartisan Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act, authorizing a billion dollars to be spent over five years on the “research, development, and demonstration” of new energy-storage technology. Many states are now setting storage-capacity targets, and in 2018 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued Order 841, which integrates stored energy into the wholesale electricity market. “There’s been a recognition that this is a technology whose time has come,” Jason Burwen, of the American Clean Power Association, told me. But a vast distance separates an engineer’s whiteboard from reality. Many renewable-storage technologies receiving funding will turn out to be too impractical, expensive, or inefficient for widespread adoption.
As we approached the farm, Craig mused on the raw physicality of many companies’ approaches. The basic principles are ones you might recall from high-school physics. If you put effort into lifting an object, it stores potential energy; if you then let that object fall, its potential energy becomes kinetic energy, which is capable of powering a generator and creating electricity. The same holds for many physical actions. In addition to lifting weights, energy-storage companies are compressing air or water, or making objects spin, or heating them up. If you use clean energy to do the initial work and find a green way to store and release it, you’ve created an ecologically responsible battery alternative.
“I’m kind of surprised and encouraged that the solutions to the long-duration-energy-storage problem could be the caveman stuff,” Craig said. Batteries depend on “pretty sophisticated electrochemistry that quickly gets outside of what I understand. And yet the solutions may be picking up heavy stuff with cranes, picking up the earth with a hydraulic jack. I think there’s some fellas in Nevada that are putting rocks in a train and rolling it uphill, then they come back down. Like, Fred Flintstone would be comfortable with most of this stuff. It could be the way.”
We pulled into the farm’s long drive. A kettle of vultures circled overhead.
“You know what that means?” Craig asked.
“The last reporter who came out here?” I said.
They laughed. “That’s right. Too many bad questions.”
I already had one in mind. Was I about to see part of the future of green energy, or a curious and short-lived experiment in rural Texas?
Until recently, we didn’t have to think much about new ways to store our energy. Fossil fuels are a prehistoric energy repository, and we could unlock their energy by burning them and driving generators. There was always more fuel to burn. “Almost all electricity in the world is used as it’s made,” Bill Gross, a longtime investor in solar power and a co-founder of Energy Vault, one of the most highly capitalized new energy-storage companies, told me. Most power that isn’t consumed immediately is lost. The problem is that, with many technologies, “it actually costs more to store electricity than to make it,” he said. In many cases, solar and wind have become less expensive than coal and gas. But add the cost of storage, and renewables can lose to fossil fuels.
Energy is stored all around us, in all sorts of ways. A bottle of fizzy water in your fridge holds energy under pressure; a tower of books contains energy, which is released when it falls. On a larger scale, volcanic eruptions and avalanches release stored energy. But energy storage is most useful when it is predictable, convenient, and dense, packing lots of power into a small space. Climate change notwithstanding, fossil fuels meet all these requirements: by burning just a gallon of easily transported gasoline, you can release enough energy to move thousands of gallons of water from the bottom of a pumped-hydro station to the top.
The post The Renewable-Energy Revolution Will Need Renewable Storage appeared first on VVDesigns.]]>
This traditional model of the leader-hero who saves the day, knows it all, is the smartest person in the room, and is too often driven by power, fame, glory, or money is not appropriate in today’s environment. This is true for several reasons:
- Today’s fast-changing, complex, and unpredictable environment necessitates a different kind of leadership. Nobody can claim to have all the answers to solve the complex crises we’re facing, and the most adaptable organizations are those in which decisions are being decentralized.
- With the idea that a company’s purpose is about far more than making money gaining ground, the hard-charging, profit-optimizing hero-leader model has lost much of its appeal.
- An increasing number of employees now value authenticity and connection over a facade of strength and infallibility.
- The nature of work has changed from the more mechanical, repetitive type to jobs that require ingenuity and creativity.
- Successful hero-leaders can easily start believing that they’re untouchable and, ultimately, indispensable. It’s easy to be seduced by power, fame, glory, and money. It’s easy to become disconnected from reality and from colleagues, surrounded by sycophants and yay-sayers.
Unsurprisingly, people today expect a different kind of leader. While each company needs to define its own leadership point of view, here’s the philosophy we deployed at Best Buy as part of our surprising turnaround and resurgence. It’s based on five attributes — five “Be’s” — of what I believe characterizes leaders who are able to unleash the kind of human magic you see at work at some of the most high-performing companies. This philosophy underpins the leadership principles that I believe are at The Heart of Business today.
Be clear about your purpose.
That is, your purpose, the purpose of those around you, and how that connects to your company’s purpose.
The staggering number of employees leaving their jobs or seriously thinking about it over the last several months has shed renewed light on the pre-Covid realization that purpose, both individual and collective, is at the heart of business. I’ve written about several aspects of corporate purpose, from how to define it and make it come to life to why it’s an essential element of motivation. For corporate purpose to be successful, leaders themselves must first be clear about what drives them and the people around them.
Corie Barry, my successor as CEO of Best Buy, once shared with me that her personal purpose is to leave something a little better than when she found it, which she connects to the company’s mission to enrich lives through technology. Every day, she maintains her connection with that purpose by asking herself how things at Best Buy were a little better that day because she was there.
Just as crucial for leaders is understanding what drives people around them. Recently, a CEO I coach felt members of his team worked primarily to advance their own functional areas rather than the organization as a whole. Together, we realized that, although he was clear on his own purpose and his organization’s, he didn’t know much about what drove the people around him. Without that knowledge, he was unable to help connect their purposes with the organization’s and to provide a common, overarching pull for all team members.
Be clear about your role.
A leader’s key role is to create energy and momentum — especially when circumstances are dire. It’s to help others see possibilities and potential, creating energy, inspiration, and hope. I would have dismissed this idea 30 years ago, but it’s essential to the role of a purposeful leader. As Dolly Parton is thought to have said: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
The late Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson’s video message to employees during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic powerfully illustrates this “Be.” He first offered support to employees directly affected by the virus. He then explained that the pandemic was severely battering Marriott’s hospitality business and what the company was doing to mitigate the crisis. There was no sugarcoating, but no panic either. Finally, he focused on signs of recovery in China before concluding on a hopeful note, projecting to the day when people would start traveling again. His message was honest, heartfelt, and moving, while at the same time uplifting and inspiring.
You cannot choose circumstances, but you can control your mindset. Your mindset determines whether you generate hope, inspiration, and energy around you — or bring everyone down. So, choose well. I was reminded of this every morning when I worked at Carlson. A statue of Curt Carlson, the company founder, stood in the lobby of the company’s headquarters, engraved with the words Illegitimi non carborundum — mock Latin best translated as “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
More generally, your role as a leader is to create the right environment for others to flourish in support of the company’s purpose. For example, under Reed Hastings, Netflix, a company whose purpose is to “entertain the world,” has created a culture of “freedom with responsibility” that values people over process and innovation over efficiency, resulting in growth and reinvention that have defied all expectations.
Be clear about whom you serve.
Hint: It’s not yourself.
A fundamental element of purposeful leadership is to be clear about who you serve in your position, both during good and challenging times. As a leader, you must serve the people on the front lines, driving the business. You serve your colleagues. You serve your board of directors. You serve the people around you, by first understanding what they need to give their best so you can do your best to support them.
In fact, view everyone as a customer. The way you treat airline employees or waitstaff, for example, will greatly influence the service you receive. This is a lesson that a top executive in one of the companies where I used to work learned the hard way. He was once stuck in an airport after his flight had been canceled. While standing in line at the service desk, waiting to get rerouted, he lost his patience and marched to the front of the queue. “Do you know who I am?” he hissed to the person behind the desk. “Ladies and gentlemen, I need your help,” said the airline employee, addressing travelers in the queue. “We have a case of forgotten identity. This man here does not know who he is!”
It takes vigilance and a healthy dose of self-awareness to avoid sliding into the trap set by power, fame, glory, and money. Before speaking or acting, be clear about your motivation and whom you’re trying to serve. “If you believe you’re serving yourself, your boss, or me as the CEO of the company, it’s okay — it’s your choice,” I once said to the officers of Best Buy. “But then you should not work here. You should be promoted to customer.” I meant that there was no room at Best Buy for people whose main purpose was to advance their own interests. Some leaders think that having sharp elbows and listening to their ego will serve their career. But as my friend Jim Citrin, who leads Spencer Stuart’s CEO practice, wisely remarked: “The best leaders don’t climb their way to the top over the backs of others, they are carried to the top.” And serving others is how it happens.
Be driven by values.
When I worked for McKinsey early in my career, I sought some leadership advice from one of my partners. “Tell the truth and do what’s right,” he said.
For the most part, we all agree on what is right: honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, and compassion. On paper, every company has great values. But values are no good if they remain on paper. Being driven by values is doing right, not just knowing or saying what’s right. A leader’s role is to live by these values, explicitly promote them, and make sure they’re part of the fabric of the business.
Johnson & Johnson, for example, is famous for its credo, first written in 1943 by the company founder’s son. Its opening sentence reads: “We believe our first responsibility is to the patients, doctors and nurses, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.”
The company’s decision in 1982 to quickly stop its production of Tylenol, one of its bestselling products, and voluntarily recall all 31 million bottles that had already been distributed throughout the country, illustrates how the company leaders lived by its credo. The decision was made after several people in the Chicago area had died after ingesting tablets that were found to have been contaminated with cyanide. While the recall was costly in the short term, it is widely remembered as a model of good leadership and crisis management.
Doing what is right is not always simple, of course, particularly during crises, when overwhelming stress and pressure can obscure our sense of values. Harry Kraemer, professor of leadership at Kellogg and an executive partner with the private equity firm Madison Dearborn, points out that one of the main principles for leaders to embrace is to firmly believe that they are going to do the right thing and do the best they can. If you surround yourself with people you trust and whose values align with yours and the organization’s, you don’t have to figure out on your own what’s right in these situations. You will determine the right thing together, and then act on it the best you can.
Being driven by values also means knowing when to leave when you’re not aligned with your environment, be it your colleagues, your boss, your board, or your company’s values and purpose. Have the wisdom to know the difference between what you can and cannot change, as the saying goes.
Be authentic.
When I stepped down from Best Buy in 2020, I sent an email to our senior leaders and board members and a farewell video to all company employees. “I love you!” was the title of the email. I concluded the video to employees with similar feelings. Laying bare my heart and my soul in this way would have been unthinkable a few years before. Like many leaders of my generation, I long believed that emotions were not meant to be shared in a business context. I have been told that the longest journey you’ll ever take is the 18 inches between your head and your heart.
It’s a long and arduous journey indeed, and it took me a lifetime to embrace the fifth (and for me by far the hardest) “Be”: Be yourself, your true self, your whole self, the best version of yourself. Be vulnerable. Be authentic. Being vulnerable and authentic does not mean offloading everything to your colleagues. For leaders, it means sharing emotions and struggles when appropriate and helpful to others.
As many of us were forced to work from home over video over the past two years, we revealed more of our whole selves — children, dogs, cats, wifi problems, etc. This was not always comfortable or easy. But we all had to see each other in a new light, as full human beings. Employees expect leaders too to be human. This starts with making ourselves vulnerable, including by acknowledging what we do not know. Brené Brown points out that vulnerability is at the heart of social connection. And social connection, in turn, is at the heart of business.
. . .
The way we lead has profound implications on people around us and how we do business. We cannot transform companies, and more generally capitalism, unless we reflect on who we are as leaders, and particularly on the following questions:
- Have you decided what kind of leader you want to be?
- How would you describe your purpose?
- How would you describe your role?
- What are you doing to create an environment in which others can thrive and flourish?
- Who are you serving?
- What values define you?
- Are you doing your best to be authentic, approachable, and vulnerable?
So, start with yourself. Be the leader you’re meant to be. Be the change you want to see.
The post 5 Principles of Purposeful Leadership appeared first on VVDesigns.]]>This guide examines the elements of a professional report and reviews the structuring, styling, and finalizing of your document in Microsoft Word.
If Microsoft Office had been a country, it would have been the third most populous country in the world. 1.2 billion people using a single suite of apps is mind-boggling. And, they “speak” 107 languages!
But right now, you and I are speaking in English and we are going to talk about the most popular tool in the Microsoft Office arsenal — Microsoft Word 2016.
This document editor is used for writing a variety of documents. From a simple application to the necessary resume. From a plain bucket list to an office memo. We think we can work with Word. But it is when we sit down to write a serious professional report, we discover an important fact.
Professional report writing needs a different set of skills.
So, ask yourself this — can you make the leap from a single document to a lengthy report? Do you know all the Microsoft Word features that will help manage this large scale document project? Can you collaborate on the work with other team members?
You may be a student, a small business owner, or an office worker…you will need to create a report or a professionally formatted document of some kind. This MakeUseOf guide will help you update your techniques and sharpen your design approach.
Writing a Report
Report writing involves research and then publishing the outcome of that analysis. In the professional world, the “look” or appearance of what you publish is paramount. The eye-pleasing final result could burnish your reputation and enhance your personal brand.
The steps below will handhold you through the expert features in Microsoft Word 2016. Spend a lot of time on a plan. Start with these guidelines…
Step 1: Decide the Purpose
Before you begin the report, you must first know why you are writing it in the first place. Reports are of many kinds but they are either meant to inform or persuade. It can be meant for describing a technical process, sharing background information, or demonstrate progress on a project.
Ask yourself – What and Why. This will help you distill the purpose to the one main point and stick to it instead of rambling on with unnecessary details.
Step 2: Identify Your Audience
The second important consideration is to evaluate your audience. Will they be able to understand what you are talking about? Are there different levels of readers who will read the report? The reader’s knowledge of the subject will greatly influence the information that you need to include.
Decide on the primary audience and then script the report at the adequate technical level. The secondary audience can be supported with supplemental information at the end of the report.
Step 3: Know Your Topic
You must know what you are talking about. So, research the topic, and include all the relevant information to prove your point. Make sure that you come to a conclusion based on facts and not personal opinion. The information must be correct, current, and well-referenced.
Also use a variety of resources such as journals, newspaper articles, books, websites, brochures, raw data, annual reports, and speeches to help support your point. Just don’t stick to Wikipedia.
Step 4: Outline the Report
You have done the research. There’s a ton of information that is waiting to be typed and printed. But wait! Don’t drown before you enter the water. Prepare the final outline of the report which will be the chart of waypoints to help you navigate from start to finish. The outline is the blueprint. It will give you a bird’s eye view of the land and also show you where you need to fill in the details.
The structure of an idea report can include the following elements:
- Title Page
- Executive Summary
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Body of the Report
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
- Appendix
- Bibliography and References
Microsoft Word’s Document Outline is a powerful feature that can help you organize a document even before you start filling it with research. Take advantage of brainstorming and mind-mapping templates too.
Step 5: Write, Edit, Proofread, and Finish
Once you have structured your report, it is time to fill out the headers with content. I personally find it best to tackle a little bit of each section, and then bulk it up with information. You can do that if you want, or finish each section as you go down the report structure. Make sure you focus on presenting your ideas and using supportive evidence rather than spelling and grammar first. Outline your argument and write a few sentences that cast your main ideas. If you find something worth quoting, quote it.
Once the majority of your text is written, it is now time to read through it and make sure it flows well. Make sure you guide the reader’s understanding with transition words such as “This information shows…”, “In other words…”, “Similarly…” and do highlight relevant and key points.
Finally, spend time to proofread, check for grammar and spelling, and double-check all relevant information and its logical flow. It is best to leave at least one day to check and proofread your work. Don’t try to edit it straight after you think you have finished, as you will tend to miss read what you have written. Get some sleep, and proofread it the next day.
The Report Checklist
Before you go and submit or hand in your report that you have worked so hard on, make sure you have done the following:
- Completed the title page with the Title, Your Name, Date, Who the report is for, and a possible description of what the report is about.
- The contents page has appropriate headings and pages numbers are correct.
- Make sure the introduction covers key points, the scope of the report, and the objective it wants to meet.
- You have added captions above tables and below images/graphs.
- Does the content of the report present the information in a clear way, logical, factual, stay on topic, is to the point?
- Does the conclusion state the results, restate main idea’s, and does not include any new information?
- Are the headings and sub headings clearly labeled?
- Are quotes relevant, up-to-date, and correctly referenced?
- Have you used page breaks where appropriate?
Now, let’s launch Microsoft Word and take you through the features that will help piece together the draft of your report and present it as a professional document.
Useful Microsoft Word Features for Report Writing
Take these as bite-sized tips and master them one by one.
Microsoft Word is a big howitzer with many nuts and bolts. Let’s focus on the key skill sets and the tools you will need to plan, prepare, and present the professional report. The Microsoft Word features we will cover below are also productivity shortcuts that will make your job easier.
Tip: Use Microsoft Word 2016’s “Tell Me” assistant to learn more about new features in the Office suite.
Let’s start with three preliminary tools…
Use Paste Special
For most of us, when we need to copy text or an image into Word, the CTRL+V shortcut does just fine. But sometimes we might want to paste the copied data into another format, such as Excel data as an image. With the Paste Special command you can discard or specify the format when you paste a picture, presentation data, table, or object from any other program into Word.
You will work a lot with Excel tables and charts in a professional document.
If you just copy what you want and click paste, you will notice that it will insert the data as tables. But, if it is a large area of cells you want to paste, and you do not want to edit it, you may want to paste it as an image, with the extra option to edit it.
In Microsoft Excel: Select and highlight the cells that you want to copy > Press CTRL+C.
In Microsoft Word: Go to Home > Paste > Paste Special. Select Paste Special and from the dialog select Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object.
You can resize the data as it was an image, and if you double click, you will be able to edit the values. You can change the table or chart and redesign it. And, if you update the data in the chart or table in Excel, you can automatically refresh the chart in Word.
Try the right-click context menu too. The Paste Special menu pops up:
There are more options to import data from Excel into Word. The Microsoft Office Support page also describes them in detail.
Use the Researcher
Yes, there is Google and Wikipedia. But constantly switching from Word to your browser can hamper your productivity. Office 2016 brings in powerful research integration to this grunt work. The Researcher can not only help you find content from within Microsoft Word but also help you quickly add citations. It uses the Bing Knowledge Graph to find the right content to support your document.
Go to Ribbon > References tab and c Choose Researcher. A pane will open on the right with the search options.
Type a keyword for the topic want to search for and press Enter.
The Results pane shows a list of sources you can use in your document. Choose a topic to explore in detail.
Add the topic to your Microsoft Word document with a click on the plus sign on the top-right. You can also click the plus sign on any result to cite the source in your research document. The cite source helps you support your research with web sources and books.
As we will see later, an annotated bibliography is one of the toughest parts of a document. The Researcher is an intelligent assistant who steps in.
Freeze Part of Your Word Document
Let’s take for granted that your professional report will be a long and complex work. You can split the Word window into two panes so that you can view two different parts of a document at the same time. It is a valuable time saver when you want to copy and paste parts from one place to another or refer to one part of the document while working in another.
Go to Ribbon > View tab > Split.
To remove the split, click on Remove Split in the same tab.
The Windows group gives you several options to change the way you work with two or more documents. The features are self-explanatory.
To scroll both documents at the same time, click Synchronous Scrolling in the Window group on the View tab. You can also click on View Side by Side to put two parts of the document next to each other.
Tip: Use Split View to display two different layouts – for instance, Print and Outline. Set the split. Then, click in the pane that you want to change, and then select a different layout on the View tab.
Work on the Layout & Design
The presentation of a report is what gets someone to read a report in the first place, and that is why it is crucial that your report is well presented. If you had the choice of four reports to read, what will you choose?
- A hand written report.
- A document printed in black and white.
- A report printed on normal A4 paper in color.
- A report printed in color, with a catchy title page, neatly bounded, and slick?
You will pick up the fourth report because it will pull you towards it by the visual appearance alone.
The front cover is not the only reason. A well-designed report is easier to read. It is also easier to scan when you don’t have time to read. That is why you need to spend some time on your headers and footers, and the different styles and themes. In short – the formatting of every element in the report.
Formatting may seem like a difficult chore, but it is a fun exercise that will exercise all your creative muscles. The key takeaways will be the skills you can apply to anything in Microsoft Office going forward. And the time you will save with all the productivity tips learned here.
Microsoft Word 2016 has a wealthy set of features. These are only some of the ways that your report design can stand out from the rest and be professional. So, let’s break down the layout and design skills.
This section will cover these features step-by-step:
- Start with a Cover Page
- Make a Table of Contents
- Create Your Header and Footer
- Add Page Numbers
(Format the Content)
- Pick the Right Fonts
- Style the Paragraphs
- Control Page Breaks
- Use Styles and Themes
- Captions
- Use Quick Parts
- Decorate with Page Borders
1. Start With a Cover Page
The first page is the first point of contact with your reader. It is also your opportunity to make a favorable impression. Don’t let your lack of artistic skills be an excuse because Word takes up the job with its in-built gallery of title pages. All you have to do is marry one to the theme of the report.
Microsoft Word 2016 offers you 16 pre-formatted templates and three more on Office.com.
Go to Insert > Pages Group > Cover Page.
The cover page appears at the beginning of the document by default.
As there are only 16 “official” templates on offer, you may find that all your other peers have the same cover page. So, why not customize it, and make it a bit more unique.
You can design a title page (or cover page) in Microsoft Word that can be an original in the stack. Save it as a template or easily change the design on the fly.
2. Make a Table of Contents
Casual readers scan. Good readers scan first and then dive deep. A table of contents provides the waypoints that help both. When it is a long and complicated document, wouldn’t you rather check the lay of the land before you head to the section that interests you?
Consider a Table of Contents (TOC) if your document is more than 10 pages long. You should first make sure you don’t need to rearrange any pages in your document before creating the TOC.
In Microsoft Word, you don’t have to write the entire TOC by hand. There’s a Table of Contents automatic tool under the References tab which takes your outline and designs it for you. Also, you can easily keep it updated when you want to change something.
There are also templates you can download and fit it around the nature of the content. For instance, a TOC for a thesis will look different from that of a company’s annual report.
We have a complete tutorial on how to create a table of contents page in Word.
The gist of it is this:
Create the outline and use heading styles to organize the hierarchy. Apply the automatic TOC tool to the heading styles. Word 2016 searches for those headings and then inserts the table of contents into your document. Then you can automatically update your TOC if you make changes in your document.
For more hands-on control, you can also use the Manual Table of Contents style. Word inserts placeholder text and you have to insert and format each content in the list.
3. Create Your Header and Footer
Headers and Footers are important in reports as the main purpose is to provide information about the report on every page. They are the common display areas for page numbers. The header of the document should contain the title of the report, and possibly the name of who created it. The title of the current section is helpful.
The footer, on the other hand, should include the page numbers, date of publication, and other administrative information that is required. Do note that some style guides have special guidelines for headers and footers.
Let’s start with the header in your document and give it a unique look.
Select Insert, then select either Header or Footer from the group. The built-in gallery shows you several options you can choose from.
The header and footer space is inserted in your document with placeholder text or table. The Header & Footer Tools opens on the Ribbon for other formatting work like the date, time, or picture.
Enter your text and then select Close Header and Footer.
You can start with a blank header and footer. If you have the design skills, use the Header & Footer Tools to design your own. Master the header and footer space if you want to create custom letterheads for your organization. You can use brand elements like company or organization logos at the top and neatly formatted footnotes at the bottom
Let’s try with and modify one of the inbuilt headers. I selected Facet from the gallery.
The final look took two minutes to put together with simple text effects and an icon sourced from the Microsoft Office icon gallery.
The header and footer are in place. But, how do you know where you are in the document? Insert page numbers as the next important signpost.
4. Add Page Numbers
Page numbers look best in the footer (unlike in the header as in the image above). You can add a basic page number from the Insert > Page Number button on the Ribbon. You can also add it from the Design tab that appears when you add the header and the footer.
You have a lot of control over page numbers. Choose from a wide range of number formats and customize them to your needs. In this case, we are adding the number to the footer, but you can put them at the top or even at the margins. In this example, I have placed the page number at the bottom left. But, I would like to change the default look and the format.
For example: Using a “Page X of XXX” makes for a better indicator on a long document.
Select the page number. Go to Insert > Quick Parts. From the drop-down menu, select Field. You can also reach the Field dialog from the Header and Footer Design tab.
Choose NumPages from the long list of field names. From the box on the right, you can pick a specific format. I selected the usual 1, 2, 3. Click OK, and the number of the number of pages will appear. Now all you have to do is add your text such as Page X of XXX, and change the look of the numbers with the usual text formatting tools available from the Home tab.
It now looks like this:
Design the look on any page number in your document and Word updates all the remaining automatically. Page numbers are the most common elements in a footer, but it can also hold any other information like the header. From the options in the Insert group, you can add the date and time, document info, pictures, and more to your header or footer.
Next, we’re heading into formatting the content.
The visual draw of your professional report comes together with the “beautification” you apply to the content. Formatting is also an essential step for a document that flows well. So, you must focus a lot of energy on picking the right font, paragraph space, and the colors.
Don’t worry. Even, the artistically challenged will find this part easy because Microsoft Word comes packaged with default themes and visual styles. Let’s start with the most basic element of a document.
5. Pick and Style the Right Font
Your choice of font in a professional Word report not only determines how the text stands out but also how it is printed. You want both for maximum impact.
You can apply a typeface (i.e. the visual look of the font) to either an entire document or to specific parts of a document. All font choices are available from the Home tab. Go to Home > Font.
The default font in Microsoft Word 2016 is Calibri. Look beyond that as you have lots of others to choose from. If you choose Times New Roman, you may be considered lazy, if you choose Windings, well… I don’t think I need to explain that. So make sure you choose a font that is easy to read and suits the report. To play it safe, pick from one of these professional-looking Google fonts; they’re available for free.
Tip: Baskerville and Georgia are good alternatives to the over-used Times New Roman
Try different font pairing for the body text and Headings (and Subheadings). Several websites like FontJoy and TypeWolf will help you experiment with font pairings. You can download and use custom fonts too. But remember the thumb-rule — never use more than three different typefaces in a document.
For that extra bit of pizazz, try a drop cap to enhance your text.
6. Style the Paragraphs
If you want to have your lines double spaced, or single spaced, you need to change the format of the paragraphs. By changing the spacing, you can make a document easier to read or give the impression that it is longer and that you have put more work into it.
To change the paragraph for the whole document, it is best that you select each block of text; otherwise, if you are using headers in your report, they will change too. Another better option is if you customize the particular style you are using to format the paragraph.
To do this, go to Home > Styles. Right click on the style you want to change and select Modify. Click on Format > Paragraph which is at the bottom of the dialog box. Now, change the spacing, indentation, and alignment for the paragraph. Click OK to close the dialogs.
When you want to change a smaller portion of the document, select what you want to change. Right click on the highlighted text and select Paragraph. The same dialog box as above will appear.
7. Control Page Breaks
A page break — by its very name — splits a continuous block of text across two pages. Page breaks are important structural elements for long documents. Word automatically inserts a page break at the end of the page. But in a long document, you can place page breaks where you want them.
To insert a manual page break, click Insert > Page Break. (Keyboard shortcut: CTRL + Enter)
A page break looks like this when you click on the Show/Hide command in the Paragraph group.
But what if you want to keep a bunch of lines together on a page or column and not have them separate because of a page break? The layout is in your control. Click the tiny arrow you see in the bottom right of the Paragraph group.
In the Paragraph box, click Line and Page Breaks. Select from these four pagination options:
- Widow/Orphan control places at least two lines of a paragraph at the top or bottom of a page.
- Keep with next prevents breaks between paragraphs you want to stay together.
- Keep lines together prevents page breaks in the middle of paragraphs.
- Page break before adds a page break before a specific paragraph.
We’ve also shown how to remove page breaks when necessary.
8. Use Styles and Themes
Styles and themes are perhaps two of the more underused features in Microsoft Word. But I think you should use them at every opportunity to save a lot of time.
But what is the difference between a theme and a style? Microsoft says:
Themes provide a quick way to change the overall color and fonts. If you want to change text formatting quickly, Word Styles are the most effective tools.
So, as themes control the general look with color, effects, and fonts – start with a good theme for your document first. Then, use Styles to dig into the specific portions you want to change the appearance for.
For Themes: Go to the Design tab. Pick a theme from the gallery. You can see previews of what the color combination is like.
For Styles: Select the part of the text you want to change. Go to the Styles group on the Home tab. You can see previews of what they look like. Choose the Style that is suitable for your content. For instance, choose a heading style for the headings in your document. Or, a particular style for any quotes. You can also modify an existing style and create new styles from scratch.
9. Captions
Every picture, chart, or illustration needs a caption to clearly describe it. It is a single line of text, usually located below a graphic. Captions are also an important reference when you need to mention them in another place. Many documents omit this small detail.
It is easy to add a caption. Right-click the illustration you want to add a caption to. Select Add Caption.
In the dialog box, add your caption text and configure the remaining options. Captions can be automatically referenced in Word.
10. Use Quick Parts
Professional documents can get repetitive. This is why you should start using Quick Parts for boilerplate content you reuse all the time. For instance, let’s say there is a contract clause you include with every document. Or, some introductory information. Instead of repeated copy-paste, save them as Quick Parts and re-use them again and again.
Quick Parts is also a type of building block. You can see the gallery of all reusable blocks of content in the Building Block Organizer.
Save and reuse your own Quick Parts in two steps:
- Select the phrase, sentence, or other portion of your document that you want to save to the gallery.
- Go to Insert > Text group > Quick Parts > Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery. Change the name and add a description if you like. Click OK.
Just as easily, you can re-use the saved snippet of content.
Place your cursor where you want to insert a selection from the Quick Parts Gallery. Go to Insert > Text group > Quick Parts. Then click the sentence, phrase, or other saved selection you want to reuse.
You will notice three other categories in the Quick Parts menu.
AutoText: Word 2016 has retained the old AutoText feature. It works like Quick Parts for any block of text that you use a great deal. Example: A note you want to use with every document.
Document Property: A set of constant properties that you can include with every document. Example: Company name or author.
Fields: These are predefined elements that update automatically. Example: Date, time, page numbers etc.
Remember, entries for document property can sometimes include information you wouldn’t want to share with everyone. So, keep a close eye on these fields and remove the hidden personal data whenever required.
11. Decorate With Page Borders
Page borders look good not only on flyers and invitations. If done right, they can add a touch of class to a document. A variety of line styles and widths and art borders are available from the Design menu on the Ribbon.
Go to Design > Page Borders.
In the Borders and Shading box, use the Page Border tab to design your border.
The settings are self-explanatory. Try Shadow or 3-D with the right colors to add a subtle but elegant border. The Art styles with their clip-art borders might be too garish for professional documents.
Use the four corner buttons in the Preview window to select the sides of the page to draw borders. Click these buttons to remove or add borders, as you wish.
Place the cursor on the first page of a document if you want to put a border around only the first page. You can also put borders around certain pages in a section. Place the cursor in the section — either in the first page of that section or in a subsequent page.
References and Collaboration
A Word report can seem like an unmanageable chore. It’s like organizing a million piles of hay into neat little stacks. The idea is to know precisely which stack has the pin you are looking for. These features are meant to make it easier.
1. Create an Index
When writing large documents such as a report that contains a lot of information, a contents page may not be enough. An Index should appear at the end of the document, with page numbers to keywords and information in the report. Create an index to help the reader reference the right information with just the page number.
Make an index if your document has more than 20 pages. Microsoft Word 2016 doesn’t let the process overwhelm you. It basically has two parts:
- Select the words or information you want to include in the index.
- Place the index at the right place in your document.
You can scroll through the finished document and mark the words or phrases you want to include in the index or mark them as you go along. Either way, select the text you’d like to use as an index entry or click where you want to insert the entry.
1. Click References > Mark Entry.
2. Edit the text in the Mark Index Entry dialog box. You can also add a sub-entry which further defines the main word you used in the index. You can add multiple levels and each appears indented under the main entry.
3. Under Options, you can also create a cross-reference to another main entry. A reader can use this to refer related information elsewhere in the same document.
4. Use the Page number format to decide on the appearance of the page numbers in the index.
5. Click Mark to mark the index entry. To mark this text everywhere it shows up in the document, click Mark All.
6. Repeat the process for all the words and phrases you want to include in the index.
You have now built your index. Insert it at the right place towards the end of the document.
1. Click on the page where you want to insert the index.
2. Click References > Insert Index.
3. The Index dialog box is displayed. Here you can choose to format the text entries, page numbers, tabs, and leader characters.
4. Choose the appearance from the different formats in the list and check the Preview window on the right. Remember, the Preview window doesn’t show you actual index. It is just a “simulation” of how it will look like.
5. Click OK. Your Index is now ready.
Sometimes, you may need to add more entries to the index after you have inserted it on the page. Mark the entry and go to References > Update index to include the new mentions.
Also, add a heading for the index because Word doesn’t do it automatically.
2. Creating Bibliographies
Your document is almost done. Now, you need to credit all the other research work and ideas which you have referenced in your document. It’s time for a bibliography.
A company report might not need a bibliography but an academic paper isn’t finished without one. The bibliography is one of the most painstaking jobs in an academic report. You need to have all your citations in order before you sit down to frame the bibliography. Also, decide on the citation style (typically MLA, APA, or Chicago-style) as per the guidelines of your subject.
Don’t hesitate to take advantage of third-party citation and bibliography generators for constructing this section.
But, Microsoft Word 2016 has a complete toolset to make this process as painless as possible. So, go to the point in the document where you would like to place the bibliography. It’s good if you have at least one citation to include, but even if you don’t, Word 2016 lets you use a placeholder citation and fill in the sources later.
Click References > Bibliography.
Word offers a few bibliography styles that differ only in their heading names. Choose the appropriate style and then insert citations from the button in the Citations & Bibliography group.
The bibliography tool has a few steps to it. For the sake of brevity, I will direct you to the excellent Microsoft Office help page which is a step-by-step guide.
Some academic papers will ask you to create an annotated bibliography. It is a more fleshed out version of a bibliography with a list of citations to journals, books, articles, and other documents followed by a brief paragraph. The paragraph is a description of the source and how it supports your paper.
3. Cross-Referencing
You can use a cross-reference to help the reader navigate through a long document. At any point in a document, you can tell the reader to refer back to a heading, page number, image, chart, footnote, endnote, and paragraph. A cross-reference link is a neat way to connect related information together. The reader just has to click on the link to go that snippet of information.
Here’s how you begin:
1. Select the place for the cross-reference and type the text that tells the reader about it. For instance: “Refer to Chart 3 for future trends.”
2. Go to Insert > Cross-reference.
3. In the Reference type box, click the drop-down list to select what you want to link to.
4. The options in the Insert Reference to drop-down will change according to your choice above.
5. In the For Which field, go through the choices and tell Word the exact information to link to.
6. Check the Insert as hyperlink box to create the hyperlink for the referenced information.
7. Click on Insert to include the cross-reference in the document.
Remember, our mention of captions? You can make cross-references to equations, figures, graphs, and tables if you used captions below them.
Word cannot create a cross-reference for something that does not exist. Word will let you know about these errors and also update the cross-references automatically when you change the page number or text of the referenced item.
4. Using Comments
A professional report can be a solitary job or you can take the help of a team to prepare the first draft. The humble Comment is one of the most underused tools of a Word document. It is displayed as a rectangular colored balloon in the margin or in the Reviewing Pane.
You can use comments as small “stickies” or self-notes. Leave little notes to yourself in the margins as you write, edit, and revise your way through a report or a manuscript. Be creative – add extra links to other resources, use them for tips and pointers, link to different parts of a document, or set up a feedback link for your readers. And when you finalize, you can easily remove all comments in Word.
Microsoft Word 2016 is also an enhanced collaborative writing tool. Comments play a huge role in communicating feedback across a team. Here’s how the comment system works…
1. Highlight the text you want to add a comment to or click at the end of a text block.
2. Go to Insert > Comment. Type your comment in the box. The comments appear in the markup area on the right. The Print Layout view is usually the best way to see the comments alongside the text.
3. Go to the Review tab and see more options for comments. This tab also shows all the controls for tracking changes and comments in a collaborative document. Use the Markup options to display or hide the comments. For instance: No Markup will hide the comments and the markup area on the right.
Finalize Your Report
Once the bulk of your report is completed and saved, it is time to finalize your report. When I say finalize, I don’t mean proofread it. That should be done too. Now, you have to take the security measures to protect the report from unauthorized changes and plagiarism.
These security measures will give an extra level of authenticity to your electronic file before you share it.
This section will cover:
- Signatures
- Insert watermarks
- Make the document ‘read only’
- Password protect your document
- Print your document to PDF
1. Signatures
You can add text signature for a personal touch to the report. But a simple text signature does not need any authentication. A digital signature is the better way to protect your document from unauthorized access. A digital signature confirms that the document came from the signer and hasn’t been tampered in any way.
Let’s create a signature line in Microsoft Word 2016.
In the document, place your cursor where you want to create a signature line.
1. Go to Insert > Text group > Signature Line and click Microsoft Office Signature Line.
2. The Signature Setup dialog box is displayed. Fill the fields as indicated. If you are sending the document to someone else for signing, add instructions for the signer in the field reserved for it (Instructions to the signer). The signer can also add give the purpose for the signing if the Allow the signer to add comments in the Sign dialog box is checked.
3. Click on OK and the document will now display a placeholder for the signature.
Enter a signature:
When you need to sign a document with a digital signature, go to the signature line and right-click on it.
You will be prompted to sign with a digital ID. If you don’t have one, Microsoft will tell you to get one from a signature service partner.
If you don’t have a digital ID, you can just insert a textual representation of a signature line. You can use a written signature or an image that doesn’t require authentication.
2. Insert Watermarks
A Microsoft Word watermark is a “fake” but still useful visual indicator for the status of the document. For instance, you can use a watermark that says “Drafts” to differentiate it from the final version of the document. Or, use the watermark to suggest the document is “Copyrighted” or “Confidential”.
The “Draft” mark is the most common. But, Microsoft Word gives you several other watermarks to choose from.
1. Go to Design > Page Background and choose Watermark. The Watermark button will be enabled in the Print view only.
2. You can choose a picture or a text watermark from the gallery. Both horizontal and diagonal versions are available. The dialog box gives you all the customization options for the final look of the watermark. Try different fonts, layouts, sizes, and colors.
3. You can type your own text in the Text field to create your custom watermark.
4. Choose OK to apply the watermark to your document. Word automatically applies the watermark to every page except the title page.
3. Make Documents “Read Only”
A professional report by its nature should not need to be edited by its readers. Converting the document to a PDF is one way. But, you can also apply a few more restrictions in Microsoft Word and prevent accidental modification or omission of any kind.
There are three ways to protect a document.
First — Make your document “read only”.
This ensures that your document can only be read or copied. It won’t prevent anyone from copying the file and making changes to the copy.
1. Go to the File tab > Info > Protect Document > Mark as Final.
2. When readers open a document, a bar on top will prompt readers to treat this document as read only. But, they can click on “Edit Anyway” to open the document in Edit mode.
Second — Password Protect Your Document.
Protect your document from unwanted edits with a password barrier.
1. Under Protect Document, choose Encrypt with Password. Type a password and click OK.
2. In the Confirm Password box, type the password again, and then click OK. The document will open with the reader prompted for a password.
Microsoft uses the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), 128-bit key length, SHA1 (a cryptographic hashing algorithm which generates an almost unique 160-bit key to replace the plaintext), and CBC (cipher block chaining) to give a hacker a well-deserved headache.
Third — Restrict Editing.
This control feature helps you as the author decide which parts of the document others can edit and which will be locked out. Think of it as the bouncer who lets the VIPs in but otherwise bars the door for the common folk.
1. Go to Review > Restrict Editing.
2. Under Editing restrictions, check Allow only this type of editing in the document, and make sure the list says No changes (Read only).
No changes (Read only) is the default restriction type. For a different restriction level for the document, click the menu and select from Tracked changes, Comments, or Filling in forms.
3. To free some sections from the editing blockade, select the sections for editing without restrictions. To select more than one area, click CTRL while selecting the area using the mouse.
4. You can check Everyone under Exceptions (optional) in the Restrict Editing panel. Or, click More users… and allow only specific users to modify the sections. The allowable areas will be marked with square brackets.
5. Click Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.
Now, type a unique password in the box that opens. You have to type it again to confirm it.
The password is optional. But it ensures that no one can just click Stop Protection and edit the document. If you are still paranoid, go ahead and encrypt your Microsoft Word document as we did in the second process above.
4. Print Your Report to PDF
The Portable Document Format comes with many advantages. Not least is its cross-platform compatibility across all computers. Your document is ready and now you need to share it or send it across to be printed. Many professional reports — for instance, a legal document — need to retain the format as intended.
Save or convert a copy to PDF. Microsoft Word 2016 does not need any third-party add-ins.
Go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS.
Remember, your Word document may contain sensitive information that you do not want to be included in the PDF. Remove it before you publish to PDF. In the Publish as PDF or XPS window, choose Options. Then select Document and clear Document properties. Set any other options you want and choose OK.
Browse to where you want to save the file and click on Publish.
The Next Step…
You are close to the finishing line. The report is ready to be handed over to your readers. But there’s one last job left.
Turn the pages and make sure (again) that your report is reader-friendly. Approach it with the eye of the reader. Have you organized your thoughts and written persuasively? Does the information flow well with the charts and illustrations? Can they skim through and find the information quickly? Is the text readable? Use the readability score to gauge the readability level of your documents as a final step.
You also might have noticed we didn’t cover some aspects of Microsoft Word. For instance, Microsoft Word Tables are an important tool for data display. Or, the power of lists in information management.
Microsoft Word is more than a quarter of a century old, and packed with little features. At MakeUseOf, we have covered every nook and cranny of this beast. So, do use our resources to learn more about this software for free. Each new feature of Microsoft Word learned will make your life easier.
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