Word Basics - Note Sheet

Instructor: Robin Wood - robin 'at' wctrain dot net

Related Materials

Sample Letter (Word Document Format)

Setting up Word the First Time

Click View > Toolbars > Customize

Uncheck Standard and Formatting toolbars share one row

Setup Default File Locations

By default, Word automatically saves files in My Documents. You can change this default file location by clicking Tools > Options > File Locations.

Select Documents and click the Modify Button. Navigate to your network user directory and click OK and OK again.

Turning On and Off Toolbars

Click View > Toolbars

From this menu you can turn on and off all of the Word toolbars. The Standard and Formatting toolbars should always be turned on. The Standard and Formatting toolbars contain all of the frequently used Word functions. A check next to the toolbar name indicates that the toolbar is turned on.

You can also Customize your toolbars from this menu.

Standard Toolbar	Formatting Toolbar

Word Workspace

Setting View Options

There are four viewing modes in Word; the viewing options can be changed from the View menu or at the bottom left corner of the Word screen just above the Status bar. These modes change the way the document looks on the screen. The two view modes most users use on a daily basis are Normal and Print Layout. Normal does not display the margin area, it essentially only shows the text on the page. Print Layout replicates what your document will look like when printed and is the preferred viewing mode.

Web Layout is used when creating web documents. If your document ever looks skewed on the page, you may want to check to see if you are in Web Layout instead of Print Layout.

Outline is for create topic level outlines.

Expanding Menus

When viewing a menu, the full menu may not display. If there are additional menu options there should be a chevron at the bottom of the menu. Click the chevron to display the rest of the menu options. If you do not like the sliding menus, you can turn this option off in View > Toolbars > Customize and unchecking Show full menus after short delay.

Common Shortcut Keys You Should Know

CTRL+N		Creates a new document
CTRL+O		Opens an existing document
CTRL+S		Saves the current document
CTRL+P		Prints the current document
CTRL+Z		Undo!!
CTRL+C		Copies the current selection
CTRL+X		Cuts or moves the current selection
CTRL+V		Pastes either copied or cut text into a new location
F7		Spell check

For additional common shortcut keys, click here.

Creating a New Document

Click the New Document icon to quickly create a new blank document with 1" top and bottom margins and 1.25" left and right margins. Click File > New from the menu to access a variety of pre-built Templates (legal, letters and faxes, memos, calendars, agendas, resumes, brochures, reports and web pages).

Open an Existing Document

Click the Open icon or click File > Open and Navigate to the file that you want to open. Select the file and click Open.

Non-Printing Characters

Non-printing characters can be very helpful when you are trying to troubleshoot a layout problem in your document. Non-printing characters include: spaces, tabs, and paragraph marks.

Centering Text

Select the text and click the Center icon or press CTRL+E.

Bolding Text

Select the text and click the Bold icon or press CTRL+E.

Inserting the Date

Click Insert Date and Time and select the date format. You can set the date to update automatically each time you save or print the document, but you may want to avoid using this option if the material is date and time sensitive. The keyboard shortcut for inserting the date is Alt+Shift+D.

Display Formatting

You may need to figure out the formatting used on a word or paragraph. Press Shift+F1 and click the word or paragraph that you want to display formatting for and a help box will appear displaying the Paragraph and Font Formatting.

Pressing Shift+F1 and clicking any toolbar icon will also display help for that tool.

Shift+F1 is a very handy help tool!

Right Click

Usually when you are working in an application you click the left mouse button to click and object to select or activate it. The right mouse button is used to display "context sensitive menus". Right click text and a menu will appear with text editing options. Right click the toolbars and a menu will appear with options for turning on and off the toolbars. The right click is very handy when you can remember where a menu option or feature is; try to right click on the option and usually the needed feature will be available.

Saving the Document

Click the Save icon or click File > Save. Select the folder that you want to save the file in, give the file a name in the File name box and click Save. If you want to rename an existing document, select File > Save As; give the document a new name and click Save.

Printing

Click the Print icon to quickly print the entire document to the default printer. Alternatively, click File> Print to send the document to another printer, set the number of copies to print, or print specific pages in a document.

GoTo

Edit > GoTo or CTRL+G will open a dialog box that allows you to quickly go to specific pages or objects within your document.

This dialog box also contains Find and Replace. Find and Replace can be used to search and replaces words or phrases within a document.

The Browse Object tool in the lower right-hand corner of the Word Screen can also be used to quickly find objects in the document. With this tool you can browse by field, endnote, footnote, comment, section, page, edits, graphics, tables and headings. You can also access GoTo and Find from the Browse Object tool.

AutoCorrect

AutoCorrect is a useful Word feature that automatically corrects common spelling and other typographical errors. AutoCorrect options can be accessed by clicking Tools > AutoCorrect.

Undo and Redo

CTRL+Z is a lifesaving shortcut. Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but if you make a mistake you can press CTRL+Z or click the Undo icon to undo your last action. Many people press undo repeatedly to undo their last several actions. Instead, click the small down arrow next to the undo icon and select all the actions you want to undo at the same time. This can also be used to redo actions.

Select text and graphics (from the Word Help System)

Select text by holding down SHIFT and pressing the corresponding key below will select text blocks.

Select text and graphics by using the mouse (from the Word Help System)

Copy Text

Select the text you want to copy. Copying text makes a duplicate of the original, if you want to move text use Cut. Do one of the following:

Click the Copy icon

Press CTRL+C

Click Edit > Copy

Right click the text and select Copy from the menu

Using one of the above actions copies text, graphics, or other objects to the clipboard. After copying, move your cursor to the location where you want to copy the text to and do one of the following:

Press the Paste icon

Press CTRL+V

Click Edit > Paste

Right click the place where you want to copy the text to and select Paste from the menu

Move Text (Cut)

Select the text you want to move. Do one of the following:

Click the Cut icon

Press CTRL+X

Click Edit > Cut

Right click the text and select Cut from the menu

Using one of the above actions moves text, graphics, or other objects to the clipboard. After cutting, move your cursor to the location where you want to copy the text to and do one of the following:

Press the Paste icon

Press CTRL+V

Click Edit > Paste

Right click the place where you want to move the text to and select Paste from the menu

The Clipboard

The Clipboard can also be used to copy or move text. To access the Clipboard click View > Toolbars > Clipboard. When you copy or cut text or other objects they are stored in the Clipboard (the last 12 objects). Hover the mouse over the clipboard object to display the contents of the clipboard item (see image to the right). Move your cursor to the location where you want the text or object inserted and click the clipboard object you want to insert.

Find and Replace

Find and replace is used to search for and replace existing text in a document. Click Edit > Replace to display the find and replace dialog box.

Type the text you are searching for in the Find what box. Type the text that you want to replace with in the Replace with box. Click find next to find the first instance of the word. Click the Replace button if you want to replace the text or click Find Next to find the next occurrence of the word.

Alternatively, you can select Replace All to replace all occurrences of a word or phrase. Be careful with this, you don't want to inadvertently replace items.

You can also use the Find and Replace box for special characters and even formatting!

Character Formatting

Select the text that you want to format and use the Formatting toolbar to apply the formatting. You can also format text via Format Font.

Format Painter

The Format Painter is one of my favorite tools. It is used to copy formatting from one block of text to another. Highlight the text that contains the formatting that you want to copy and click the Format Painter icon . The mouse pointer will change to a small paint brush . Select the text that you want to apply the formatting to and the format is copied to the text. If you want to apply the formatting to several instances of text double click the Format Painter and the formatting will be applied to whatever text you select until you turn the tool off by clicking once on it when you're done.

Setting Tabs

Type the text that you want formatted with tabs pressing the tab key once between each item. Your text will look similar to the text below. Be sure to press the tab key only once between each item.

Select the lines of text.

Click once on the ruler where you want to set the first tab, this will set the tab and place an L (left tab) on the ruler. Click the ruler once to set each subsequent tab. If you want to remove a tab drag the off the ruler.

Tabs can also be set in Format > Tabs.

Here you can change the type of tab stop, the default tabs, and clear all tabs.

Indenting Text

Select the paragraph that you want to indent (triple click a paragraph to select). Click the increase indent icon to indent the left side of the paragraph by 1/2" (each click increases the indent by 1/2").

The indent markers on the ruler can also be used to indent paragraph text. Select the paragraph and drag the left or right indent marker to the desired location.

Finally, the easiest method of indenting text is to click Format > Paragraph and typing the values that you want to indent by in the Left and Right boxes.

A hanging indent (the first line of text is at the margin and the second and succeeding lines are indented by 1/2") can also be set in Format Paragraph. Select the paragraph of text, click Format > Paragraph and set Special to Hanging. Set By to .5" or the desired amount.

Line Spacing

The Format > Paragraph dialog box also contains line spacing commands; here you can change the spacing to 1.5, Single, Double, or a specific measurement.

The spacing before and after a paragraph can also be set. This controls the spacing between paragraphs, whereas line spacing controls the spacing within a paragraph.

Checking Spelling and Grammar

As you type a paragraph of text the spelling and grammar checkers are working. When you make spelling or grammatical errors, you will see red squiggly lines under the misspelled words and green squiggly lines under the grammatically incorrect sentences. Right click the squiggly line and a menu of word/sentence suggestions will appear.

Click the desired replacement from the menu that appears.

You can run the spelling and grammar check at any time by clicking the Spell Check icon from the Standard toolbar.

The Thesaurus

Looking for a synonym for a word, right click the word and select synonym. A list of synonyms will appear. From this menu you can also access the Thesaurus. You can also access the Thesaurus from Tools > Language > Thesaurus.