Basics of MS Word

Microsoft Word Fundamentals

In plain terms, a word processor is software whose job is to process text — to let you enter words, then arrange, correct and decorate them before producing a finished printed page. Word sits inside the wider Office family alongside Excel, PowerPoint and the other Office programs; each program specialises in a different kind of work, and Word's speciality is the written document.

Uses of MS Word

Because it can handle anything from a one-line note to a hundred-page report, Word is used for a very wide range of everyday writing jobs. The original manual lists the following five uses of the Microsoft Word application:

• Creating simple letters. Personal letters, applications and short correspondence are quick to type, correct and print.
• Creating a big document such as a project report or a company's yearly (annual) report, where many pages, headings and tables are needed.
• Creating simple designs such as informational vouchers and folders.
• To create a News Letter.
• To create Mail Letters, etc. — the same letter prepared so it can be sent to many different people.

Starting MS Word

Before you can do anything in Word you must first launch the program. The original manual gives the full menu path for starting Microsoft Word: Start Button → All Programs → Microsoft Office → Microsoft Word. In words, you click the Start button, select All Programs, select Microsoft Office, and then select Microsoft Word from the menu options. On newer versions of Windows the Office folder is reached the same way, simply through the Start menu. There are a few easy ways to open Word; the most common is from the Start menu shown below.

Step 1 — Open the Start menu and find Word

Click the Start button (the Windows logo at the bottom-left of the screen). The Start menu opens and shows your pinned apps — look for Word (marked in gold). If you don't see it, type “Word” in the search box at the top and it will appear.

Word

Step 2 — Word opens with a blank document

After you click Word, the program opens a new, empty document named Document1, ready for you to start typing. (This is why, when Word gets loaded, the opening screen displays a document named Document1.) A Word file is saved with the extension .docx.

The Starting Window & its Parts

When Word opens, take a moment to learn the main parts of the screen — this is the starting window of Microsoft Word. The window has a row of Tabs at the top, and each tab contains various options. The large white area in the middle of the screen is the actual page in which the document can be typed, formatted and printed. Each labelled part below is marked in gold and joined to its name by a thin leader line.

Quick Access Toolbar File Tab Vertical Ruler Status Bar Title Bar Ribbon Tabs Ribbon Horizontal Ruler

• Quick Access Toolbar — displays quick access to commonly used commands (such as Save, Undo and Redo). It sits at the very top-left, near the File menu, so the most frequent commands are always one click away.
• Title Bar — shows the name of the document together with the program name. In MS Word the name of the document is displayed on the Title Bar.
• File Tab — the File tab replaced the Office button of earlier versions. This area is called the Backstage, which helps us to manage the Microsoft application and provides access to its options such as Open, New, Save As, Print, etc. The Backstage also provides information pertaining to your document and options to help set up your window defaults, and it contains standard commands such as Save, Save As, New and Print.
• Ribbon Tab — the title or name of the specific Ribbon (Home, Insert, Page Layout and so on). Ribbon — displays groups of related commands within tabs; each tab provides buttons for commands.
• Horizontal & Vertical Rulers — the measuring strips used to set margins and indents in the document. Insertion Point — the blinking straight line where the text you type appears. The white area is the actual page on which you type, format and print. Status Bar — runs along the bottom of the window and shows page and word information (and is where the total number of pages in the current document is shown).

Tabs, Templates & the Options Window

Microsoft Word uses Tabs instead of menus to organise its various functions. In addition, the command buttons have been placed in a Group within the Ribbon, so that related commands stay together. The small arrow called the Dialog Box Launcher in the corner of a group shows additional options beyond the buttons visible on the ribbon.

Templates

A template is a ready-made, professionally-designed document you can start from instead of a blank page. Microsoft Office has a variety of predesigned templates within specific categories, so that readymade, professionally designed document formats — which are what "templates" really are — can be used as a starting point.

Opening a template:

1. Select the File tab, and then click on the New option.
2. The Available Templates window will appear — pick the one you want.

Available templates

The Options Window

The Microsoft Word application allows us to customise its setting options. Everything from how Word displays the screen to how it saves files can be adjusted here.

1. Click on the File tab, and then select the Options item.
2. The Word Options window will appear. This is where we can choose our desired settings and preferences.

Customise the Ribbon

We can easily customise the Ribbon to suit our needs by creating new tabs and filling them with the commands we use the most. This is useful when a command you need often is buried on a tab you rarely open — you can bring it onto a tab of your own. The full procedure has five steps.

Step 2 The Word Options window will appear. Click on the Customize Ribbon option. From the Choose commands from list, click on your desired ribbon option, and then click on the Add button to place it in the Customize the Ribbon list. Finally, click on the OK button.

Customize Ribbon

Quick Access Toolbar & Show / Hide

Add commands to the Quick Access Toolbar

Microsoft Word has a Quick Access Toolbar so that we can have quick access to our most-used commands. Because it stays in the same place no matter which ribbon tab is open, you can add the commands you reach for most and keep them permanently within one click.

Step 2 The Customize Quick Access Toolbar option panel will appear. Click on your desired command option to be placed on the Quick Access Toolbar (or choose More Commands… for the full list).

Tick a command to add it

Non-Printing Characters (Show / Hide)

The Show/Hide button displays non-printing characters, including paragraph marks, spaces and tabs. This button works as a toggle switch: click it to turn the display of non-printing characters on, and click it again to turn them off. These marks are only an aid while you work — paragraph, space and tab marks will not appear on your printed documents.

Working with Show/Hide: On the Home Ribbon, in the Paragraph group, click on the Show/Hide button to view paragraph marks; click on the Show/Hide button again to hide them.

Where Home ribbon → Paragraph group → Show/Hide (¶).

Show / Hide ¶

Saving a Document

Saving a document stores it permanently to your hard drive or other storage device, so that your work is not lost when the program closes. The first time you save a new document, Word asks you for a name and a place to keep it. The procedure has four steps.

Step 1 Click on the File tab, then select the Save option (or press Ctrl + S) to save the document permanently to your hard drive or other storage device.

File → Save

Step 2 The Save As window will appear. In the Directory section on the left side of the window, click on the icon for the place where we wish to save our document. Then, in the File Name box, type your desired document name, and click on the Save button.

File name Save

A Word document is saved as a .docx file. Shortcuts: Ctrl + S to Save, Ctrl + O to Open.

Selecting Text

We must select text before we can change the format — that is, before you can make text bold, colour it, move it or delete it, you must first mark which text the change should apply to. We can use the mouse to select text in a variety of ways, which are explained in the table below. Selected text is shown with a grey highlight, as in the screenshot.

Selected text

The table shows the many ways to select with the mouse.

Setting Margins

The margin is the empty border around the text. Microsoft Word margins are defaulted to 1 inch for the top and bottom, and 1 inch for the left and right. To change your margins, use the Margins button found on the Page Layout ribbon. The full procedure to create margins has five steps; follow each one below.

Step 1 First select the entire document text — press the Ctrl key, place the mouse pointer anywhere on the left margin, and click once with the right mouse button. Then select the Page Layout tab and, in the Page Setup group, click the Margins button.

Margins

Step 2 The predesigned margins panel will appear. Change the margin by selecting one of the preset margin buttons (for example the top one, Normal, which is 1 inch all round). For a size that is not listed, click Custom Margins… at the bottom of the panel to customise your margin.

Pick a preset Custom Margins…

Line Spacing

Line spacing is the gap between the lines of text. Microsoft Word defaults the line spacing to double space (2.0). Line spacing affects an entire paragraph or document, not just one line. Use the Line Spacing button on the Home ribbon to change line spacing. To add spacing, follow the two steps below.

Step 1 Select the entire document (or the text you want to change). Click on the Home tab; in the Paragraph group, click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button.

Line Spacing

Step 2 A short menu of spacing values opens. Click the value you want — for example, select 1.5. For finer control over the exact spacing, click Line Spacing Options… at the bottom of the menu.

Choose a value

Formatting Text

Formats can be applied to any text within our document. The formatting styles are the most common way to change the appearance of text in a document. To apply formatting we must, as always, select the text first; we can use the mouse to select text in the various ways already explained. The common format buttons are on the Home tab. The original manual gives these format-option examples:

• Click on the Bold button to make text bold (Ctrl + B).
• Click on the Italic button to italicise text (Ctrl + I).
• Click on the Underline button to add an underline to text (Ctrl + U).
• Click on the Bullets button to add a bulleted list to text.
• Click on the Numbering button to add a numbered list to text.

Additional Font Options

Additional font options are available, such as font effects, special styles and previewing font changes. You can view these additional options by clicking on the Home tab and then clicking on the Dialog Box Launcher in the corner of the Font group.

The original "adding more effects" procedure runs as follows: place the insertion point before the first line of the document; type any text and then press the Enter key twice; select the text and click the Bold button; while the text is still selected, click the Dialog Box Launcher on the Font group; the Font window appears; in the Effects area, tick the check box next to All caps, then click OK. The steps below show the two key clicks.

Step 1 Select your text. On the Home tab, click the small Dialog Box Launcher arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Font group.

Font dialog launcher

Step 2 The Font window opens. In the Effects area, tick an effect such as All caps, then click OK. Font effects include superscript, subscript, outline, emboss and engrave.

Effects

Text Alignment & View Modes

Text Alignment

Microsoft Word aligns paragraphs in four different ways relative to the left and right margins: left, center, right and justified. The Word default paragraph alignment is left. You can change paragraph alignment by clicking on an Alignment button, located on the Home ribbon in the Paragraph group.

Align Left / Center / Right / Justify

View Modes

Microsoft Word has five view modes. To select a view mode, click on the View tab and, in the Document Views group, select your desired view mode. The five modes are:

• 1. Read Mode — the best way to read a document, including some tools designed for reading instead of writing.
• 2. Print Layout — to check out how your document will look when it is printed. (This is the default; headers, footers and page numbers are displayed in this view.)
• 3. Web Layout — see how your document will look as a webpage. This layout is also great if you have wide tables in your document.
• 4. Outline — see your document in outline form, where content is shown as bulleted points. This view is useful for creating headings and moving whole paragraphs within the document.
• 5. Draft — switch your view to see just the text in your document. This is useful for quick editing because headers/footers and certain objects won't show up, allowing you to focus on your text.

Document Views

Spelling & Grammar

Microsoft Word automatically checks for incorrect spelling and grammar. As we type the document, Word uses wavy red underlines to indicate possible spelling errors and wavy green underlines to indicate possible grammatical errors. To correct an error, right-click on a word with a wavy underline and then click on the correction you desire from the option panel; you can also edit the error directly in the document if no suggestions are applicable.

• In the document, place the mouse pointer over the misspelled text, click the right mouse button, and select the correction from the option panel.
• In the document, place the mouse pointer over the grammatical-error text, click the right mouse button, and select the correction from the option panel.
• In the document, place the mouse pointer over the repeated text, click the right mouse button, and select Delete Repeated Word from the option panel.

Full check To use additional spelling and grammar options, select the Review tab; in the Proofing group, click on the Spelling & Grammar button for a guided check of the whole document.

Spelling & Grammar

Page & Section Breaks

Page Breaks and Section Breaks can be inserted anywhere within a document. A break ends one part of the document and starts the next at a chosen point — a page break, for example, pushes the text after the cursor onto a fresh page. Follow these three steps.

Step 1 Select the Page Layout tab, then click on the Breaks button in the Page Setup group.

Breaks

Step 2 A panel opens with two sets of options — Page Breaks (Page, Column, Text Wrapping) and Section Breaks (Next Page, Continuous, Even Page, Odd Page).

All break options

Step 3 Select the Page option. This will insert a page break that places us on a new page in the document, moving the text after the cursor onto a brand-new page. (To arrange text in newspaper-style vertical columns instead, you would insert a Column break.)

Page

Working with Tables — Creating & Editing

Tables offer a convenient way to display information that might otherwise be confusing and cluttered. Text is neatly formatted in a table without setting tab stops. A table is made of rows and columns, and the place where a row and a column intersect to form a rectangular shape is known as a cell.

A. Create a table

The Table Tools tab only appears when a table is selected. To create a table in Microsoft Word, follow these steps.

Step 1 Click on the Insert ribbon. The Table button is the only option in the Tables group. The Table panel will appear; select, for example, two rows and two columns.

Table

Step 2 To insert a table into our document, move the mouse pointer over the number of rows and columns we desire. The cell selection will be highlighted as we move the mouse; when the desired rows and columns are highlighted, click on the last cell. Then type the information in the table — the insertion point will appear in the first cell; type text in the first cell, and use the Tab key on the keyboard to move from one cell to the next.

Drag to choose size

B. Edit a table — moving & selecting

Moving the insertion point and selecting text in a table is very similar to the ways we do so for regular text in a document. However, there are some procedures that are unique to tables, as illustrated below.

Tables — Width, Rows, Merge & Format

When the cursor is inside a table, two extra tabs appear — Table Layout and Table Design. They hold every table command.

Adjust Column Width

Columns in a new table are always the same width. It is often necessary to change the width of one or more columns so that text or data can be seen. Position the mouse pointer on the column boundary (the right side of the column). The mouse pointer appears as a double vertical line with left and right arrows. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the pointer either left or right to change the width; release the button when you are satisfied with the new width.

AutoFit

AutoFit is a feature that will automatically adjust the column width to accommodate the widest text entry in the column. To AutoFit the entire table, place the mouse pointer at the leftmost column boundary; when the pointer appears as a double vertical line with left and right arrows, double-click the left mouse button.

Insert Rows or Columns

To insert a column, select a cell in the desired column where the new column will be inserted to the right or left.

1. To insert a column to the right of the table: click in any cell on the last column, on the Table Tools ribbon click the Layout tab located in the Rows & Columns group, and click the Insert Right button — the new column appears.
2. To insert a new row at the top of the table: click anywhere in the first row, and on the Table Tools ribbon click the Layout tab in the Rows & Columns group, then click the Insert Above button — the new row appears.

Merge Cells; Delete Cells, Rows, Columns & Table

Merge Cells: to combine two or more adjacent cells, first select those cells; on the Table Tools ribbon click the Layout tab in the Merge group, then click the Merge Cell button — the multiple cells merge into one cell.

Delete Cells, Rows, Columns and Table: to delete a cell, row, column or table, select the cell(s) to be deleted, then on the Table Tools ribbon click the Layout tab in the Rows & Columns group, and click the Delete button — the delete options will appear.

Format a Table — AutoFormat

AutoFormat has numerous table formats that may be applied to our table. These different Table Styles may affect the style of the lines or borders in the table, the justification of text and the font formats. If your Word document contains more than one table, each table may have its own format. Try to make all editing changes to the table before using AutoFormat.

Table Layout tab — insert/delete rows & columns, merge cells, and set width & height. (To drag-resize: point at a column boundary and drag; double-click it for AutoFit.)

Insert / delete rows & columns Merge / Split Width / Height

Tables — Design, AutoFormat & Text

The Table Design tab is where the look of the whole table is controlled. From here you apply ready-made styles, shading and borders.

A. Auto Format — on the Table Tools ribbon, click the Design tab located in the Table Styles group, then click the drop-down arrow to view multiple formats to select from. Click on a Table Style of your choice to apply it (AutoFormat).

Table Styles

B. Text Format and Alignment

Text within a table can be formatted the same way you format text in other areas of the document. Use the command buttons found on the Home ribbon (Bold, Italic, alignment, font colour and so on). In the Table → Layout tab, the Repeat Header Row option can be used to repeat the first row of the table on multiple pages.

Printing a Document

Click on the File tab and select the Print option to print your current document. This will display the Print window options, along with a preview of the document to the right, such as the range of pages to print and the number of copies to print. The default printer is the printer that your applications will use unless you specify otherwise; to change printers, click on the drop-down arrow next to the Printer Name — this will display a list of installed printers and allow you to select another printer. Use the steps below.

Step 1 Click the File tab and choose Print (or just press Ctrl + P).

File → Print

Step 2 Select your desired options in the Print window — pick the printer, set the number of copies and the page range — then click the Print button to print your document.

Choose printer Copies Click OK to print

Inserting Pictures & Shapes

The Insert tab's Illustrations group adds pictures, shapes, SmartArt and charts. Click the button you need.

1. Inserting a Picture. Microsoft Office is equipped with a Picture folder containing several photo selections; we can also save additional photos to the Picture folder or create a new folder for our pictures. To insert a picture in our file: (1) click on the Insert tab; (2) click the Picture button from the Illustrations group; (3) navigate to your desired Picture folder; (4) select a photo; (5) click the Insert button.

2. Inserting Online Pictures. Within Microsoft Office there are numerous online pictures to illustrate a specific topic. From the Insert ribbon: (1) click the Online Pictures button from the Illustration group; (2) the Insert Picture window appears; (3) in the Search box, type your desired graphic topic and press Enter; (4) select your desired picture and click Insert.

Step 1 Click the Insert tab, then click Pictures (a saved photo) or Shapes (a drawing).

Pictures Shapes

Step 2 (Shape) 3. Inserting Shapes. The Shapes option allows you to insert a variety of shapes — rectangles, circles, arrows, lines, flowchart symbols and callouts. Click the Shapes button from the Illustration group; the Shape panel appears, so select your desired shape; the mouse pointer changes into a plus sign; hold the left mouse button down and, while dragging, your desired shape will appear. (Continuing to drag the mouse will enlarge the shape.)

Pick a shape, then drag

SmartArt & Charts

4. SmartArt allows you to change graphic images into visual communication information, including graphical lists, process diagrams, organizational charts, etc. From the Insert ribbon: click the SmartArt button from the Illustration group; the SmartArt panel appears; select your desired graphic image and click OK.

Pick a graphic OK

5. Charts. To illustrate and compare data you can use the chart option; this is similar to the Excel chart feature. From the Insert ribbon: click the Chart button from the Illustration group; the Chart panel appears; select your desired chart type and click OK; the selected chart type appears next to a spreadsheet; enter your desired data onto the spreadsheet and the chart will reflect your data; finally, on the spreadsheet window click the Close window button and the chart will appear on your document. (The ribbon where you create charts is the Insert ribbon.)

Pick a chart type OK

Track Changes & Comments

Track Changes is a tool that is utilised in Microsoft Word for electronically reviewing and marking up a document. A document can be reviewed and edited by a group of readers, and the author of the document has final control over which changes to accept or reject. All the tools are on the Review ribbon.

New Comment Track Changes Accept / Reject

• A. Turning on Track Changes — this marks changes in the current document and keeps track of each change by reviewer name. Click the Review tab; in the Tracking group, click the Track Changes button. The document can now be edited with Track Changes; click the Track Changes button a second time to turn it off.
• B. Apply comments to Track Changes — select the Track Change text to which you want to apply a comment; click the Review tab and, in the Comments group, click the New Comment button. The text you select is highlighted and a comment box displays on the right side of the document; type your comments in the Comment box, then click anywhere in the document to deselect the comment area.
• C. Accept or Reject Tracked Changes — select the text change that has been tracked; click the Review tab; in the Changes group, click Accept or Reject.

Cover Pages & Working with an Image

Adding a Cover Page

Microsoft Word enables you to insert a variety of predesigned cover pages into our document automatically. The procedure: (1) click the Insert tab and go to the Pages group; (2) click the Cover Page button; (3) the Built-In window appears with predesigned cover pages; (4) select a cover page of your choice; (5) on the Pages group you can also insert a Blank Page or a Page Break.

Step Click the Insert tab → Pages group → Cover Page, then pick a ready-made design from the gallery.

Pick a cover page

Working with an Image

Images that appear on your document can be moved, resized, rotated, modified or deleted. To change an image, click once on the image to select it. The following items will appear on the image: circle handles on each of the four corners, box handles on each of the four sides, and a green dot handle on the top of the graphic. (Initially a newly inserted picture has 8 resize handles.)

Sizing handle (drag to resize) Rotate handle

• 1. Move an image to another location on the document — select the image and place the mouse pointer on it; when the pointer changes to a double-arrow cross, left-click the image and drag it to a new location.
• 2. Resize an image to make it smaller or larger — select the image and place the pointer on one of the sizing handles (circles/boxes); when the pointer changes to a double-sided directional arrow, left-click and drag until the desired size is achieved. Use a corner circle handle for the best results in resizing.
• 3. Rotate an image to a different angle — select the image and place the pointer on the curved arrow handle; when the pointer changes to a curved arrow, left-click and drag in the direction you want to rotate.
• 4. Modify an image by changing its colour scheme, style, location and cropping — select the image and the Picture Tools ribbon appears; click the Format tab and modify the image using the buttons within the Adjust, Picture Styles, Arrange and Size groups (this is where Crop removes an unwanted part of the graphic).

Key Facts & Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts

Exam Question Bank

These 150 objective questions are the complete set frequently asked in GCC-TBC and other computer examinations, reproduced and numbered as in the source. Revise with the answer beside each question. (True/False statements are answered True or False.)

Exam Question Bank (cont.)

Exam Question Bank (cont.)

Exam Question Bank (cont.)

Exam Question Bank (cont.)

Chapter Mind Map

One-glance revision of the whole chapter — follow each branch to recall the key points.