THE PROGRAM, THE FONTS, THE TYPING.

Microsoft Word

The Basics

Background

Microsoft Word is a word processing program included in the Microsoft Office Suite of products.

Microsoft Word was first released in 1983 and has been released for Microsoft Windows since 1989.

Over the past 21 years there have been consecutive versions of Microsoft Word released with each new edition of Microsoft Office with the latest release being Microsoft Word 2013.

What Microsoft Word Can Do For You

In Microsoft Word you can compose letters, create resumes and cover letters, create table of contents, add footnotes, create blog posts, edit existing documents, print out envelope labels, manipulate photos and much more. If you can write it down on a piece of paper, Word can handle it.

Word is often considered the premiere word processing software for the Windows operating system.

It is not free, however.

Alternatives to Microsoft Word

Two free word processing software programs on Windows Computers are called NotePad and WordPad.

NotePad is a very basic text editing piece of software that allows you to write things down and not much more.

WordPad has more features available than NotePad. It looks very similar to Microsoft Word’s appearance but has considerably fewer features.

Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office are freely available on the Carol Stream Library Computers.

Apache Open Office and/or LibreOffice

Two free pieces of software available for download off of the Internet are Open Office and LibreOffice.

Both of these suites of software offer programs similar in nature to Microsoft Office.

Being free and open source means there are advantages and disadvantages to using these programs over Microsoft Office.

Open Office: www.openoffice.org

LibreOffice: www.libreoffice.org

Enough Mousing Around, Let’s Type!

Now that Word is explained, let’s access that program.

Click the Windows image in the bottom left corner of the screen, All Programs, Microsoft Office and then click on Microsoft Word.

If you have the Microsoft Word shortcut icon on your desktop, try double clicking it.

You should see the following on your screen.

The Layout of Microsoft Word

The Things You Will See

The box of options at the top of the screen is known as the Microsoft Ribbon and it is featured on all Microsoft Office products.

The ribbon shows all the options available to manipulate the text that you write down on the blank page below.

The “File” tab allows you to open, save, and print your document.

Atop the Ribbon

Atop the ribbon you should see the following. These are tabs. Clicking any of them will cause a new set of options to appear on the ribbon to further manipulate your work.

Microsoft Word 2007 does not have the file tab, this was implemented with Word 2010. The file tab’s options are instead listed under the giant circle in the top left corner of the program.

Sometimes the tab options may differ depending on any add-ons you may have installed for Word on your own.

Knowing What Each Option Does

While Microsoft does its best to provide a picture or symbol of what each option is supposed to do, sometimes it is not always clear what will happen when you choose a particular feature.

While you could click the option, test it, and then click it again to turn it off, that may cause problems with your word document.

To get a text description of what each button does, hover your mouse over them and a small box will appear with an explanation.

The Home Tab

The Different Options in Microsoft Word

There are many buttons in Microsoft Word that do a lot of different things. Left click to access them.

The main buttons you will probably need are:

The B Button allows you to bold letters on the page.

The slanted I button lets you italicize words.

The U button lets you underline words.

Drop Down Menus for Font Type and Size

The words and numbers above the B, I, and U buttons contains the font and the font size.

Click the little arrow next to either of the two boxes to get a number of options to appear below the box. This is called a drop down menu and clicking once on any of those options chooses that option for you. To apply that option to what you have already done, click and move your cursor over your work so it is highlighted and then choose your option.

There are other drop down menus scattered across the ribbon all indicated by an arrow pointing down.

Changing the Alignment

To center the text on the page, evenly spread it across the page, or to have the text start going from the right to the left, look at the paragraph section of the Home tab.

Directly above the word “Paragraph” are four boxes with lines. Hovering your mouse over them should make the descriptions “Align Text” appear along with the alignment choice. Click the option you want to activate it. You cannot have different alignments on the same line unless you make columns.

Changing the Line Spacing

If you start typing in the document,

you may notice that the lines have a

lot of spacing between them.

This is because by default, Word

inserts a 1.15 space between each line

And also a space before/after each paragraph.

To remove either or both of these two options, either click the line spacing button and change both or else choose the style option of “No Spacing”.

Insert Bullet Points, Numbers, etc.

To insert a list of bullet points, numbered lines, etc. Choose the three dots or the three numbers directly above the text alignment options.

Clicking the button will automatically activate the option. Choosing the arrow next to the button will allow you to choose what symbol will appear next to each line. For example, a point, an arrow, a checkmark, a letter, etc.

Highlighting Your Work

If you take your mouse and click next to any of the words of which you have typed and then hold down on the mouse button while moving your mouse over those words, you can highlight them.

Once you have highlighted something, you can then use the options on the Microsoft Ribbon to change the highlighted words. Once you find the option you want to use, left click it to then apply it.

This can be useful for changing something you have already done without having to rewrite it.

Undoing What You Have Done Part I

At the top left of the ribbon is a giant circle with a multi-colored image inside of it. Next to the disk are two arrows, one going clockwise and one counter-clockwise.

The counter clockwise arrow once pressed will begin to undo the last few things that were done in the text editing program. A recently bolded word will no longer be bold, etc. This can be useful to correct minor mistakes that were accidentally made to the document.

Undoing What You Have Done Part II

The clockwise arrow can be used in one of two ways. After hitting the undo button, the clockwise arrow redoes the last undone action.

If no actions have been redone, it then repeats the last action you performed. Ex. pressing the space bar, typing a letter, saving a document, etc.

Moving Things Around

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting

To insert words from one part of a paper into another section or to add a picture or other graphic to a document, you will need to use features known as “cut”, “copy”, and “paste”.

Under the Home tab on Microsoft Word, to the right is a picture of a clipboard with a piece of paper on it with the word “Paste” underneath it and to the right of that image is a small pair of scissors with the word “Cut” and below that an image of two piece of paper next to each other diagonally with the word “Copy”.

Clip, Repeat, and Glue

If you highlight a word or series of words on your document, by clicking the scissors picture you can then ‘cut’ those words out of their current location and then ‘paste’ them somewhere else in either that document or another one by clicking the paste button.

If you click the picture of two pages below the scissors, you can then copy the highlighted portion of the text and then paste that anywhere you want also by using the paste button. This results in two identical pairs of whatever was copied. You can then hit paste multiple times and repeatedly paste what was either cut or copied.

Copying and Pasting on the Internet

When on the Internet, you cannot cut anything that has been published on a website.

Instead, you can highlight the text you want and then click the “edit” button at the top of the web browser and then click “copy”.

You can then return to Microsoft Word and then click anywhere on the page and select paste as normal.

To copy a picture, right click the image and then left click “copy” in the menu options and then return to your document and then click the “paste” button.

The Advanced Features

Tabs

There are more features in Microsoft Word than can be seen at one time.

The additional features are included under each tab at the top of the page. The default tab to open is the Home page and other tabs are available next to it.

Left click once on a tab and you can see the options that fall under its heading.

Insert Tab Options

To insert a photo, table, chart, etc. click the Insert tab and then choose the appropriate option.

If inserting a photo, a box will pop up to help you locate the photo and then add it to the page.

To freely move the photo around the page, the “format” tab will not appear at the top when selected.

From there on the left hand side of the ribbon, select “wrap text” and then “square” or “tight”.

Not selecting this option means Word will treat the photo as text and so it will not be easily movable.

Page Layout Tab Options

The page layout tab allows you to select a larger paper size such as legal-sized 8.5x14 and poster sized 11x17 and other choices.

This tab also allows you to change the orientation of the paper from portrait to landscape meaning the text will now move across the length of the page rather than the width.

You can also insert columns into a document with this tab.

Review and Zoom

Two features that you may also find useful are spell check and zoom.

Spell Check is located by clicking the word Review in the ribbon above and clicking the ABC Spelling Box with the checkmark. You can then see which words are spelled wrong and suggestions for how to fix them. The one word of warning is that you should always proofread yourself in addition to spell checker because the program is not always right with catching and correcting mistakes.

With Zoom, click the View button and then click Zoom with the magnifying glass to magnify the document in front of you. This is not the same as choosing a different text size. Zoom just changes its appearance on the screen and not on the page itself when printed.

Back to Microsoft Word

Now that Microsoft Word is explained, try and use the keys in different combinations on the blank white page before you.

As a reminder, all the options above the blank page are on a feature called the Microsoft Ribbon.

Try and click different buttons on the ribbon in combination with your writing.

I have also provided a sheet of practice examples to use for typing. Try some out now if you want.

Saving a Document

When you work on a document, you will want to periodically save your document. This is so you do not lose you work and also so you can edit it later.

Save your document by clicking the large circle in the top left and chose the “Save As” option to give your file a name and chose in what format you would like to save it.

To keep saving after naming your document, simply click the small image of a disk to the right of the circle or press CTRL and S on the keyboard.

Printing a Document

As with saving, access the print option by clicking the arrow and moving the mouse down to print.

The Print Preview option allows you to view what a document will look like on the printed page.

The Print choice will give you multiple options before printing such as number of copies, printing landscape, and more.

If All Else Fails…

In the top right of Microsoft Word is a white question mark in a blue and white circle.

Clicking on that will access Microsoft Help. You can search for a number of different topics and helpful tips and answers to your questions.

Microsoft Word help button->

Computer Class Fun Fact

Clippy was Microsoft Office 98’s helper for anyone with questions.

He would often pop up when a user was writing a letter or any other document with an offer to help with their work.

Due to its constant appearances, Clippy was universally derided to the point that even Microsoft began making parody videos of the character mocking it.

IMPROVING YOUR TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

ONE CLICK AT A TIME

Where Do I Go From Here?

Public Computers and Databases

The public library has 16 public computers available to use. Starting in a one hour session and adding half-hour increments unless there is a reservation.

Library staff also on hand to assist with your questions as needed.

On our website, www.cslibrary.org, click “Learn” and “Online Classes” to view some of the library’s databases.

“LearningExpress” and “Lynda.com” both contain online video tutorials for software and more. Register for free to view them.

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OUR WEBSITE TO FIND OUT WHEN FUTURE CLASSES WILL

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Any Questions, Comments, Concerns, Optimism?