word4research.Rmd

---
title: Writing Research Paper in Word
---

While I use LaTeX in my own work, Microsoft Word is powerful piece of software,
and many of the complaints against Word come down to not being aware of its
features. There are many tools you can use to build your research paper;
whatever tool you use, learn how to use it proficiently.

## General Advice

This guide on using [Microsoft Word for Dissertations](http://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=283073&p=1886001)
covers everything and more that I would have. Also see [this](http://www3.nd.edu/~shill2/dtclass/word_2013_word_for_research_projects.pdf)

- [separate presentation and content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_presentation_and_content) using styles
- Automatically number figures and tables
- Use a reference manager like [Mendeley](https://www.mendeley.com/), [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/), [Colwiz](https://www.colwiz.com/app), or [Papers](http://www.papersapp.com/). They have plugins for citations in Word.
- When exporting figures for Word, if you must use a [raster graphic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics) use PNG files (not JPEG). For publication, use a high DPI (600) with PNG graphics.
- Learn to use *Fields*. You can insert figures from files that you can update using `Insert > Field > Links and References > IncludePicture`. This is useful for programmatically generating figures to insert into your document. Likewise,  you can insert text from files that you can update using `Insert > Field > Links and References > IncludeText`.

## Using R with Word

For a dynamic reports you can use [R Markdown](http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/word_document_format.html) and export to a word document. When doing this, use a reference document to set the the styles that you will use.
See [Happy collaboration with Rmd to docx](http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/articles_docx.html) for more advice on using R Markdown with Word.

When using functions from packages such as [xtable](https://cran.r-project.org/package=xtable), [stargazer](ttps://cran.r-project.org/package=stargazer), or [texreg](ttps://cran.r-project.org/package=texreg) output  HTML, which can be copy and pasted into word.

Finally, the [ReporteR][Create Word documents from R](http://davidgohel.github.io/ReporteRs/word.html) package is an alternative method to generate Word Documents from R.