Microsoft Word has a number of features built into it, however some of the capabilities are not only missing in most textbooks about the Microsoft Office suite, but they most likely will never be taught in classroom environments. Specifically, these undocumented features are called Easter eggs.

What is an "Easter egg"? - The term "Easter egg", as we use it here, means any amusing tidbit that creators hid in their creations, in this case, Microsoft Word. Easter eggs can be hidden in computer software, movies, music, art, books, or even your watch. There are thousands of them, and they can be quite entertaining, if you know where to look.

This presentation should introduce you to a few of the Easter eggs found in Microsoft Office.

Insert Sample Text

This is a very simple Easter egg. In the computer font development industry, there is a famous line of text used for sampling fonts. It reads simply:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The Microsoft Word software engineers have made it simple to insert the above into your document and have it repeat 3 times. Enter "=rand()" (without quotation) on its own line in a Microsoft Word document. Hit return and the text should be inserted.

Word 2000 Visual Basic Credits

The next Easter egg has a much more complex process. In most major software releases by Microsoft, there is a secret place where there are the credits of the authors of the software. The visual basic developers have done just that in for Word 2000.

Start by opening Microsoft Word. It is not necessary to create a fresh document. The first step is to open Microsoft Visual Basic by pressing ALT + F11 on the keyboard.
Next, right-click on the toolbar and select customize. Normally, in the customize menu, you would change buttons on the toolbar, but in this case it is simply part of the process.
Ignore the Customize window, but keep it open. Left-click on the Help menu at the top of the screen, move down to "About Microsoft Visual Basic" and right-click. You should see an editable field, "Name: &About Microsoft Visual Basic". Change the value to "Show VB Credits" as in the screenshot shown. Press enter, click out of the help menu and close the Customize window. All you should have to do to view the Easter egg is return to the Help menu and left-click on the new option, "Show VB Credits". If you have speakers, turn them on to hear some background music.

Cast of Characters in Word 2000

Of course the Microsoft Visual Basic developers were not the only team to include a set of credits for themselves. Word 2000 also has a list of credits, although not quite as impressive as the list for Visual Basic. Again, start with Word 2000 open.

• Go to the Help menu and choose "Microsoft Word Help" or just simply press F1 as a shortcut.
• In the "Microsoft Word Help" window, click the "Answer Wizard" tab.
• Type "Cast" in the "What would you like to do?" box.
• Click search.
• In the search results in the right side of window, click the graphic with the orange bar.
• A new window should open with the listing of the Microsoft Word 2000 some of the names of the key people in the development of Word.

Conclusion

Easter eggs are not well documented and are usually discovered by people with a talent for examining the functional code behind the software using tools such as hex editors. In other cases, the developers themselves have to let people know about these hidden bundles of joy.

If you are skeptical about just how neat these features are, be assured that the eggs in Word 2000 are relatively tame. Other large applications, with Microsoft and others, can even have games built in as Easter eggs.