Things you need to know for writing a thesis or dissertation in Microsoft Word: Styles, Style breaks, Tables of Contents, and more!

In writing my dissertation, I've had to become more familiar with some of the more advanced features of Microsoft Word (I know, I know, I should be using LaTeX, but that's just not what people in my field use...). Here are a few of the most critical tricks I've learned. I hope this is helpful to other people as they write long documents like theses and dissertations. The screenshots here are from Word 2016, but all of these things are very similar on Word 2010 and 2013.

Linux shell notes

This is a post containing various assorted Bash scripts, and some explanations of how they work. Some don't rely on Bash specific features and will probably work on many other shells as well. I intend to keep adding to this list over time.

resizing (scaling) svg images using rsvg-convert

I had some svg files that I wanted to display on a Drupal website, but they were larger than I wanted for the page. For some reason scaling in the html tags wasn't working, so I had to change the source images.

Exporting diagrams from Dia into Microsoft Word or Powerpoint

Short answer: on Windows, export to "emf" format, then add the image to the document like you would any other image.

printing print-locked pdfs

software needed: ghost script, ghost view, foxit reader (or any other pdf reader, the print options in foxit seem to play better with my printer for doing things like printing multiple pages to one sheet).

open pdf with ghost view (GSview).
File->convert->device:pdfwrite->ok (default options seem to work fine)

open the generated file with foxit.
print the file

There are lots of other ways to do this also...