Of all the word-processing programs ever invented, the fanciest and most popular is Microsoft Word.

This chapter explains its newest version, Microsoft Word 2007 (which is also called Microsoft Word 12). The next chapter explains older versions (such as Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003). If you’re stuck using an older version, skip to the next chapter, called “Microsoft Word classics”.

 

Microsoft Word 2007 is intended to be used with Windows Vista (which was invented at the same time), though it will run even on computers that have just Windows XP (which is outdated).

To run Microsoft Word 2007 well, you need Windows Vista and at least 1G of RAM. This chapter assumes you have that.

(Microsoft Word 2007’s minimum requirements, to run at all, are “Windows XP or Vista” and “at least 256K of RAM.” If you have just that minimum, you won’t be happy, since of the commands in this chapter won’t work well.)

Before reading this chapter, read and practice my Windows chapter, especially the section about “WordPad”, which is a stripped-down simplified version of Microsoft Word.

When you buy Microsoft Word 2007, it comes on a DVD disk, which you (or your computer store) must copy to your hard disk.

For example, if you got Microsoft Word 2007 as part of Microsoft Office 2007, here’s how to copy Microsoft Office 2007 to your hard disk:

Microsoft Office 2007’s fancy versions include an e-mail client called Outlook, which is too complicated. I recommend making your main (default) e-mail client be Windows Mail (which is part of Windows Vista), not Outlook. When you click “Start”, if you see —

I recommend you change it to —

by doing this (after getting permission from any folks who share your computer):

 

To start using Microsoft Word 2007, click the Start button (at the screen’s bottom-left corner).

If you see “Microsoft Office Word 2007”, click it. (Otherwise, click “All Programs” then “Microsoft Office” then “Microsoft Office Word 2007”.)

If the computer says “Activation Wizard”, do this:

See the Microsoft Word screen

The screen’s top says “Document1 — Microsoft Word”. You also see this tab bar:

Type your document

Start typing your document.

Microsoft Word 2007 typically uses the keyboard the same way as WordPad. For details, read these sections on pages 82-84.:

Here are differences.…

Enter key Microsoft Word 2007 automatically puts extra space below each paragraph; so at the end of a paragraph in Microsoft Word 2007, press the Enter key just once (never twice).

Ctrl symbols Microsoft Word understands more Ctrl symbols than WordPad. Here’s what Microsoft Word understands:

Movement keys Microsoft Word differs from WordPad in this way:

Automatic editing

The computer will automatically edit what you type.

AutoCorrect While you type, the computer will automatically make little corrections to your typing. For example:

Some of those corrections happen immediately; others are delayed until you finish typing a word (and press the Space bar or a period).

The computer’s ability to make those corrections is called AutoCorrect.

If you dislike a correction that the computer made to your typing, here’s how to undo the correction:

Those methods work just if done immediately, before you do any other typing or editing.

Red squiggles While you type, the computer automatically puts a red squiggle under any word that looks strange. The computer considers a word to look “strange” if the word’s not in the computer’s dictionary or if the word’s the same as the word before. For example, if you type “For a sentury, I love you you”, the computer will put a red squiggle under “sentury” and under the second “you”.

If you see a red squiggle, you misspelled the word or accidentally repeated the word or forgot to put a space between words or your vocabulary is more advanced than the computer understands. So if you see a red squiggle, look carefully at the squiggled word to make sure it’s really what you want.

If a word has a red squiggle under it, try right-clicking that word (by using the mouse’s right-hand button). Then the computer will make suggestions about what the squiggled word ought to be.

For example, if you typed “sentury” and the computer put a red squiggle under it, right-clicking the “sentury” will make the computer display two suggestions (“sentry” and “century”) and two other popular choices, so you see this list:

Choose what you want:

Green squiggles When you finish typing a sentence and start typing a new one, the computer automatically check the grammar of the sentence you just typed and puts a
green squiggle under any obvious grammar error. For example, if you type “We is” instead of “We are”, the computer will draw a green squiggle under the “is”. (The computer will draw the squiggle when you finish typing that sentence and start typing the next one.) If you accidentally press the Space bar twice instead of once, so you type “They  kiss” instead of “They kiss”, the computer will put a green squiggle under “They  kiss” (when you finish typing that sentence and start typing the next one).

If a word has a green squiggle under it, try right-clicking that word (by using the mouse’s right-hand button). Then the computer will make a suggestion about what the squiggled word ought to be.

Synonyms Suppose you’ve typed a word correctly (so it has no red or green squiggle) but wish you could think of a better word instead. Just right-click the word then click “Synonyms”. The computer will show you synonyms (words that have similar meaning).

For example, if you type the word “girl” then right-click it then click “Synonyms”, the computer will show you these words, which have similar meaning:

If one of those words appeals to you, click it: that word will replace “girl” in your document. If none of those words appeals to you, press the Escape key (which says “Esc” on it) twice.

What about the word “hot”? It has 4 meanings: “high temperature”, “miserably warm and humid weather”, “spicy food”, and “excited person”. Try typing the word “hot” then right-click it. The computer will start by showing you these synonyms:

It will also show you this antonym (word that has the opposite meaning):

If one of those words appeals to you, click it. If none of those words appeals to you, try clicking “Thesaurus” (which appears under the synonym list and means “book of synonyms”): that makes the screen’s right edge show you the Research window, which shows you this longer list of “hot” synonyms and antonyms, grouped into 4 categories:

If you click one of those words, the computer will show you synonyms of that word. If you finally find a word you like, point at it without pressing the mouse’s button, then click the word’s down-arrow then “Insert”: that makes the word replace “hot” in your document. When you no longer need the Research window, close it (by clicking its X).

Translate The computer can translate words among 15 languages: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and others! To translate, choose one of these methods:

Bottom corners

Look at the screen’s bottom corners.

Page count The screen’s bottom-left corner tells you which page of your document you’re on and how many pages are in the entire document. For example, if it says —

it means you’re on page 2 of a 3-page document.

Here’s how to hop to a different page:

Word count To the right of the page count, you see the word count. For example, if it says —

it means your document contains 279 words.

Here’s how to find out more about your document’s length:

Zoom slider At the screen’s bottom-right corner, you see a plus sign (+). Left of it, you see a minus sign (-). Between those signs, you see the zoom slider, which is a pentagon.

Try this experiment: drag the zoom slider toward the right. Here’s how:

If you drag the zoom slider toward the right, the screen’s characters enlarge, so you can read them even if you’re sitting far from the screen or have poor vision. It’s like looking at the document through a magnifying glass: the document looks enlarged, so you can see the details of each word and character more clearly; but not as many words and characters fit on the screen. Use the arrow keys to see different parts of the page.

If you drag that slider toward the left, the screen’s characters shrink, so they’re harder to read but you can fit more characters and pages onto the screen.

When you finish playing with the zoom slider, put it back to its normal position (the middle), so the number left of the minus sign is “100%”.

Page arrows Near the screen’s bottom right corner, you see this symbol:

5

5

If your document contains several pages, clicking that symbol makes the computer go back up and show you the previous page. For example, while you’re looking at page 4, clicking that symbol makes the computer show you page 3.

Under that symbol, you see this symbol:

6

6

Clicking it makes the computer show you the next page. For example, while you’re looking at page 3, clicking that symbol makes the computer show you page 4.

Page break

After you’ve finished typing a paragraph (and pressed Enter), try this experiment: while holding down the Ctrl key, press Enter again. That creates a page break: it makes the next paragraph be at the top of the next page.

If you change your mind, here’s how to remove the page break:

All delete

Here’s how to delete the entire document, so you can start over:

Quick Access Toolbar

At the screen’s top-left corner, you see a circle. Next to the circle, you see a gray bar (called the Quick Access Toolbar), which contains these icons (little pictures) called buttons:

If you point at a button (by moving your mouse’s arrow there, without clicking), the computer will tell you the button’s name.

Here’s how to use those buttons.…

Save button To save the document you’ve been typing (copy it onto the disk), click the Save button.

If you haven’t saved the document before, the computer will say “File name”. Invent a name for your document. Type the name and press Enter.

That makes the computer copy the document onto the hard disk. For example, if you named the document “mary”, the computer puts a document called mary.docx into the Documents folder. If you wish, you can prove it by doing this:

Afterwards, if you change your mind and want to do more editing, go ahead! When you finish that extra editing, save it by clicking the Save button again.

Save often! If you’re typing a long document, click the Save button about every 10 minutes. Click it whenever you get to a good stopping place and think, “What I’ve typed so far looks good!” Then if an accident happens, you’ll lose at most 10 minutes of work, and you can return to the last version you felt good about.

Instead of clicking the Save button, you can use this shortcut: while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the S key (which stands for “Save”).

Undo button If you make a mistake (such as accidentally deleting some text or accidentally inserting some useless text), click the Undo button (which is an arrow turning back). That makes the computer undo your last activity, so your text returns to the way it looked before you made your boo-boo. (To undo your last two activities, click the Undo button twice.)

Instead of clicking the Undo button, you can use this shortcut: while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the Z key (which stands for “Zap”).

Extra buttons If you click the Undo button, the computer might undo a different activity than you expected. For example, it might even erase everything you typed!

If clicking the Undo button accidentally makes the text look even worse instead of better, and you wish you hadn’t clicked the Undo button, you can “undo the undo” by clicking the
Redo button (which is next to the Undo button and shows a blue arrow curving to the right, so it bends forward).

The Redo button appears just after you click the Undo button. At other times, you see a Repeat button instead (which is an arrow making a circle). If you click the Repeat button, the computer repeats the last thing you typed.

Instead of clicking the Redo button or Repeat button, you can use this shortcut: while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the Y key (which stands for “Yes, I do want it, very much”).

Your Quick Access Toolbar might include other buttons, too!

At the screen’s top-left corner, you see the Office button (a circle with the Microsoft Office symbol inside it). Click it. Then you see the Office menu:

From that menu, choose whatever you wish (by clicking it). Here are the most popular choices.…

Save

If you choose Save from the Office menu (by clicking the word “Save” after clicking the Office button), you get the same result as clicking the Save button that’s on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Save As

Suppose you’ve already saved a document then edited it some more, but you’re not sure you like the new editing. Try this experiment.…

Choose Save As from the Office menu (by clicking the phrase “Save As” after clicking the Office button); when you do that, make sure you click the phrase “Save As”, not just the arrow next to it.

Then invent (and type) a new name for the document. At the end of the new name, press Enter.

The computer will copy the new, edited version of the document onto the hard disk. That new, edited version will have the new name you invented.

The old original version of the document will be on the disk also and keep its old original name. The disk will contain both versions of the document.

Print

Here’s how to print the document onto paper. Make sure you’ve bought a printer, attached it to the computer, turned the printer’s power on, and put paper into the printer. Then choose Print from the Office menu (by clicking the word “Print” after clicking the Office button); when you do that, make sure you click the word “Print”, not just the arrow next to it.

The computer assumes you want to print just 1 copy of the document. If you want to print several copies, type the number of copies you want.

Press Enter. The computer will print the document onto paper.

How to finish

When you finish working on a document, choose Exit Word or Close from the Office menu.

Exit Word If you choose Exit Word, the computer will stop using Microsoft Word.

Close If you choose Close instead of Exit Word, the computer will let you work on another document, and your next step is to say “new document” or “old document”. Here’s how.…

If you want to start typing a new document, choose New from the Office menu then press Enter.

If you want to use an old document, click the Office button, so you see the Office menu. To the right of the Office menu, you see a list of the 17 documents you used most recently: that list starts with the most recent. Click whichever document you want to use. If you want to use a different document, which is not on that list of 17, do this:

Didn’t save? If you didn’t save your document before doing those “how to finish” procedures, the computer asks, “Do you want to save?” If you click “Yes”, the computer copies your document’s most recent version to the hard disk; if you click “No” instead, the computer ignores and forgets your most recent editing.

How to erase the recently-used list To the right of the Office menu, you normally see a list of the 17 documents you used most recently. That list might annoy you, for two reasons:

If the document list annoys you, delete documents from it, as follows.…

 

 

 

To make sure your computer is acting normally, click the word “Home” (which is near the screen’s top-left corner).

Then you see these 5 words: Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, Editing. Above each word, you see a group of icons. I’ll explain how to use each group. Let’s start with the Font group, which looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Underline

Here’s how to underline a phrase (like this).

Activate the Underline button (which says U on it) by clicking it. Activating the button makes the button turn orange. Then type the phrase you want underlined. Then deactivate the Underline button (by clicking it again).

Go ahead: try it now! Practice using the underline button before you progress to more advanced buttons!

Shortcut Instead of clicking the Underline button, you can use this shortcut: while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the U key.

Fancy underlines The computer assumes you want each underline to be a simple horizontal line. If you want the underline to be fancier (such as a double underline, a thick underline, a dotted underline, a dashed underline, or a wavy underline), do this instead of clicking the Underline button: click the Underline button’s down-arrow then the kind of underline you want. The computer will remember which kind of underline is your favorite and automatically choose that kind for all future underlines — until you tell the computer otherwise or exit from Microsoft Word.

Bold

Here’s how to make a phrase be bold (like this). Activate the Bold button (which says B on it) by clicking it. Then type the phrase you want emboldened. Then deactivate the Bold button (by clicking it again).

Here’s how to make a phrase be bold and underlined (like this). Activate the Bold and Underline buttons (by clicking them both). Then type the phrase. Then deactivate those buttons (by clicking them again).

Instead of clicking the Bold button, you can use this shortcut: while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the B key.

Italic

Here’s how to italicize a phrase (like this). Activate the Italic button (which says I on it) by clicking it. Then type the phrase you want italicized. Then deactivate the Italic button (by clicking it again).

Instead of clicking the Italic button, you can use this shortcut: while holding down the Ctrl key, tap the I key.

Superscript

Here’s how to make a phrase be tiny and raised (^{like this}). Activate the Superscript button (which says x² on it) by clicking it. Then type the phrase you want superscripted. Then deactivate the Superscript button (by clicking it again).

The superscript button helps you type math formulas, such as the Pythagorean Theorem (a² + b² = c²).

Subscript

Here’s how to make a phrase be tiny and lowered (_{like this}). Activate the Subscript button (which says x₂ on it) by clicking it. Then type the phrase you want subscripted. Then deactivate the Superscript button (by clicking it again).

The subscript button helps you type math formulas, such as the Fibonacci Series (F_n+2 = F_n + F_n+1) and the Slope Formula: m = (y₂ - y₁) / (x₂ - x₁).

Strikethrough

Here’s how to make a phrase be crossed out (like this). Activate the Strikethrough button (which says abc on it) by clicking it. Then type the phrase you want crossed out. Then deactivate the Strikethrough button (by clicking it again).

The Strikethrough button helps you type semi-censored sentences, such as “You’re an asshole showing little sympathy for the team’s needs.”

Font size

Look at the Font Size box (which has a number in it). Usually that box contains the number 11, so you’re typing characters that are 11 points high.

Here’s how to type characters that are bigger or smaller.…

Any new characters you type afterwards will be the size you chose. (Characters typed earlier don’t change size.)

The popular sizes look like this:

When you finish typing the enlarged or reduced characters, here’s how to return to typing characters that are normal size (11 points high): click the down-arrow that’s to the right of the Font Size box, then click 11.

Font

You see a box saying “Calibri”. That’s called the Font box.

Next to that box is the symbol ₆. Click it.

You’ll start seeing the Font menu, which is a list of fonts in alphabetical order. (To see the rest of the list, press the down-arrow key or rotate the mouse’s wheel toward you.)

Click whichever font you want. Though Microsoft likes the font called “Calibri”, the best fonts are “Times New Roman”, “Tahoma”, “Comic Sans MS”, and “Courier New”. Here’s how they look:

 

 

 

To avoid hassles, choose a font that has “TT” in front of it. The “TT” means it’s a TrueType font (or OpenType font). For example, “Times New Roman”, “Tahoma”, “Comic Sans MS”, and “Courier New” are all TT OpenType fonts.

After you’ve clicked a font, any new characters you type will be in that font. (The characters you typed earlier remain unaffected.)

When you finish typing in that font, here’s how you can return to typing characters in the Calibri font: click the Font box’s down-arrow then click “Calibri”.

Font Color

Normally, the characters you type are black. Here’s how to make them a different color, such as red.

Look at the Font Color button, which has an underlined A on it. Notice the color of the A’s underline. If it’s the color you want, click the underline. If it’s not the color you want, do this instead:

Afterwards, whatever characters you type will be in the color you chose. (The characters you typed earlier remain unaffected.)

When you finish typing in that color, here’s how to return to typing characters that are normal (black): click the down-arrow that’s to the right of the A’s underline, then click “Automatic” (which means “normal”).

Here’s how to dramatically change a phrase you typed.

Point at the phrase’s beginning, then drag to the phrase’s end (while holding down the mouse’s left button). The whole phrase turns blue. Turning the phrase blue is called selecting the phrase.

Then say what to do to the phrase. For example, choose one of these activities:

Go ahead! Try it now! It’s fun!

Other ways to select

The usual way to select a phrase is to point at the phrase’s beginning, then drag to the phrase’s end. But sometimes other methods are faster!

To select a phrase, choose one of these methods.…

To select several phrases at once, do this procedure:

Document vanishes

While you’re typing a document, if the whole document suddenly disappears, you accidentally deleted it. Here’s why:

Cure:

Drag a phrase

To move a phrase to a new location, just “select the phrase, and then drag from the phrase’s middle to the new location.” Here are the details.…

First, select the phrase you want to move, so the phrase turns blue.

Then take your finger off the mouse’s button. Move the mouse’s pointer to the phrase’s middle (so you see an arrow).

Finally, hold down the mouse’s button (which makes a vertical dotted line appear at the arrow); and while you keep holding down the mouse’s button, drag that line to wherever you want the phrase to move. (Drag the line anywhere you wish in the document, or drag to the document’s end. The computer won’t let you drag past the document’s end.)

When you finish dragging, lift your finger from the mouse’s button. Presto, the phrase moves where you wished!

 

The Clipboard group looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cut and Paste

Here’s another way to move a phrase to a new location.

Select the phrase (by dragging across it with the mouse, so the phrase turns blue). Click the Cut button (which looks like a pair of scissors). The phrase will vanish from its original location.

Click the new location where you want the phrase to reappear. Then click the Paste button’s picture of a clipboard (not the word “Paste”). The phrase will appear at that new location.

Ctrl key Here are shortcuts:

Copy

Here’s another way to copy a phrase, so the phrase appears in your document twice.

Select the phrase (by dragging across it with the mouse, so the phrase turns blue). Click the Copy button (which looks like a pair of dog-eared pages). Click where you want the copy of the phrase to appear, and click the Paste button’s clipboard. The copy will appear at the new location, so the phrase will be in your document twice.

If you want the phrase to appear in your document a third time, click where you want that additional copy to appear, then click the Paste button’s clipboard again. If you want the phrase to appear in your document a fourth time, click where you want that additional copy, then click the Paste button’s clipboard again.

Here’s a shortcut: instead of clicking the Copy button, you can press Ctrl with C.

Format Painter

Suppose one part of your document looks pretty, and one part looks ugly. Here’s how to make the ugly part look as pretty as the pretty part:

If one part of your document looks pretty, here’s how to make several other parts look as pretty:

The Paragraph group looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alignment buttons

While typing a line, you can click one of these alignment buttons:

 

 

 

   Align    Center     Align   Justify

   Text                       Text

   Left                      Right

Clicking the Center button makes the line be centered,

Clicking the Align Text Right button makes the line be at the right margin,

Clicking the Align Text Left button makes the line be at the left margin,

Clicking one of those buttons affects not just the line you’re typing but also all other lines in the same paragraph.

Clicking the Justify button makes the paragraph be justified, so the paragraph’s bottom line is at the left margin, and each of the paragraph’s other lines is at both margins (by inserting extra space between the words),

When you click one of those alignment buttons, you’re activating it. That button deactivates when you click a different alignment button instead.

When you start typing a new document, the computer assumes you want the document to be aligned left, so the computer activates the Align Left button. If you want a different alignment, click a different alignment button instead.

Examples:

Clicking one of those alignment buttons affects the entire paragraph you’re typing, but the paragraphs you typed earlier remain unaffected, unless you do this:

When you start typing a new paragraph, the computer gives that paragraph the same alignment as the paragraph above, unless you say differently (by clicking one of the alignment buttons).

Centered title Here’s how to type a centered title, using the techniques you’ve learned so far.…

Press the Enter key twice (to leave a big blank space above the title).

Next, click the Center button (so the title will be centered) and the Bold button (so the title will be bold). Type the words you want to be in the title and press the Enter key afterwards.

Congratulations! You’ve created a centered title!

Next, make the paragraph underneath the title be normal: make that paragraph be uncentered (click the Align Text Left button or Justify button) and make it be unbolded (deactivate the Bold button, by clicking it).

Shortcuts Here are shortcuts:

Line Spacing

While typing a paragraph, you can click the Line Spacing button (which has an up-arrow and down-arrow on it), which makes this menu appear:

Clicking “2.0” makes the paragraph be double-spaced (so there’s a blank line under each line). Clicking “3.0” makes the paragraph be triple-spaced (so there are two blank lines under each line). Clicking “1.0” makes the paragraph be single-spaced (without extra space under the lines). Clicking “1.15” makes the paragraph have a little extra space between each pair of lines; that’s what the computer assumes you want if you don’t say otherwise.

The computer assumes you want a 10-point-high blank space under the paragraph, to separate that paragraph from the paragraph below. If you don’t want that space, click “Remove Space After Paragraph”.

If you click “Add Space Before Paragraph”, the computer will add a 12-point-high blank space above the paragraph, to separate that paragraph from the paragraph above.

Indentation buttons

Before typing a paragraph, you can press the Tab key. That makes the computer indent the paragraph’s first line, half an inch.

If you want to indent all lines in the paragraph, do this instead of pressing the Tab key: while typing the paragraph, click the Increase Indent button (which shows a right-arrow pointing at lines). That makes the computer indent all lines in the paragraph. (The paragraphs you typed earlier remain unaffected.)

When you start typing a new paragraph, the computer indents that paragraph if the paragraph above it was indented.

If you indented a paragraph by clicking the Increase Indent button but then change your mind, here’s how to unindent the paragraph: click in the paragraph, then click the Decrease Indent button (which shows a left-arrow pointing from lines).

Example Suppose you start typing a new document. Here’s how to make just paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 be indented.

Type paragraphs 1 and 2 normally (without pressing the Increase Indent button).

When you start typing paragraph 3, press the Increase Indent button. That makes the computer start indenting, so paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 will be automatically indented.

When you start typing paragraph 6, here’s how to prevent the computer from indenting it: click the Decrease Indent button at the beginning of paragraph 6.

Changing your mind To indent a paragraph you typed earlier, click in the middle of that paragraph and then click the Increase Indent button. To unindent a paragraph you typed earlier, click in its middle and then click the Decrease Indent button.

Extra indentation If you click the Increase Indent button twice instead of just once, the computer will indent the paragraph farther. After typing that doubly indented paragraph, if you want the paragraph below to be unindented you must click the Decrease Indent button twice.

Each time you click the Increase Indent button, the computer indents the paragraph a half inch farther. Each time you click the Decrease Indent button, the computer indents the paragraph a half inch less.

Bullets Here’s a different way to indent an entire paragraph: while typing the paragraph, activate the Bullets button (which is the first button in the Paragraph group) by clicking it. That makes the computer indent the paragraph and also put a bullet (the symbol ·) to the left of the paragraph’s first line. That’s called a bulleted paragraph. The bullet symbol is indented a quarter inch; the paragraph’s words are indented a half inch.

After you’ve typed a bulleted paragraph, any new paragraphs you type underneath will be bulleted also — until you request an unbulleted paragraph (by deactivating the Bullets button).

Numbering Here’s another way to indent an entire paragraph: while typing the paragraph, activate the
Numbering button (which has 1 and 2 and 3 on it) by clicking it. That makes the computer indent the paragraph and put “1.” to the left of the paragraph’s first line. That’s called a
numbered paragraph. The number is indented a quarter inch; the paragraph’s words are indented a half in.

When you type a new paragraph underneath, that paragraph will be numbered “2.”, the next paragraph will be numbered “3.”, etc. Any new paragraphs you type underneath will be numbered also — until you request an unnumbered paragraph (by deactivating the Numbering button).

Shading

Here’s how to make a whole paragraph’s background be colored (instead of white).

Click in the paragraph. Click the down-arrow of the
Shading button (which looks like a paint bucket). Click one of the 70 colors (or click “More Colors” then “Standard” then double-click your favorite of the 142 colors).

Show/Hide ¶

The symbol for “Paragraph” is ¶, which looks like a backwards P.

One of the buttons has a ¶ on it. Microsoft calls it the Show/Hide ¶ button, but most folks call it just the ¶ button.

If you activate that button (by clicking it), the screen will show a ¶ symbol at the end of each paragraph, so you can easily tell where each paragraph ends. The screen will also show a dot (·) wherever you pressed the Space bar and show a right-arrow (ž) wherever you pressed the Tab key, so you easily tell how many times you pressed those keys.

For example, if you typed “I love you” correctly, the screen will show “I·love·you”. If you see “I·love···you” instead, you know you accidentally pressed the Space bar three times after “love” instead of just once, so you should delete the two extra spaces (by moving there then pressing the Delete key twice).

When you finish examining the ¶ symbols and dots and right-arrows, and you’re sure you’ve put just one space between each pair of words, here’s how to make those special symbols vanish: deactivate the ¶ button (by clicking it again).

Sort

Here’s how to alphabetize a list of names (or words or phrases).

Type each item on a separate line, like this:

If the list is the whole document, click in the list. If the list is just part of the document, select the list by doing this:

Click the Sort button (which shows an A over a Z, with a down-arrow). Then press Enter.

That makes the computer alphabetize the lines, so the document looks like this:

Border

After you’ve typed a paragraph, here’s how to put a box around it:

If you change your mind, here’s how to remove the box:

 

The Styles group looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visible styles

You see 4 styles, called Normal, No Spacing, Heading 1, and Heading 2. Click whichever style you prefer. Here’s how they differ:

Table of styles

Those 4 styles are just the top row of a table of styles. To see the whole table (which includes 5 rows, making a total of 20 styles), click the down-arrow that has a dash over it. Here’s a quick summary of each style:

If you click one of those 20 styles, the computer will choose it — and its row of the table will become the main row that you see on the screen (until you choose a different row instead by clicking the up-arrow or dashed down-arrow).

If you click Heading 2, the computer expands the table by including a Heading 3. If you click Heading 3, the computer expands the table by including a Heading 4. Here are the differences:

Headings 5, 6, 7, etc., all have the same main features as Heading 3.

Traditional fonts

Microsoft made Calibri the normal font for Microsoft Word 2007 because Calibri’s easy to read even on a blurry screen. But to print on paper and high-quality screens, you should make the normal font be Times New Roman instead, which is the easiest font to read if you’re not in a fog. Here’s how to make that switch:

That changes the normal (body) font from Calibri to Times New Roman — and changes all headings from Cambria to Arial — so Calibri and Cambria are eliminated from that document. (Other documents are unaffected.)

Traditional styles

Microsoft made “10-point gap below each paragraph” the normal style for Microsoft Word 2007 so people writing business letters, e-mails, and Websites wouldn’t have to press the Enter key twice at the end of each paragraph. But publishers of books, newspapers, and magazines want a more traditional format where each paragraph’s first line is indented and there’s no extra space between paragraphs, since “extra space” means “wasted paper”. Here’s how to make that switch:

That switch affects the whole document. (Other documents are unaffected.)

If you’re smart enough to make both of those changes (changing fonts to Office Classic and changing Style Set to Traditional), here’s what the 20 styles become:

Invent your own style

Here’s how to invent your own paragraph style:

The style you invented (“Wow”) will appear in the Styles group as the 2^nd style.

Go ahead and use it! For example, while you’re typing another paragraph, you can make that paragraph’s style be “Normal” or “Wow”: just click the style you want.

The style you invented (“Wow”) is part of the computer’s repertoire just while you’re using that document, not while you’re using other documents.

Here’s how to improve that style later:

In the Editing group, you see 3 choices: Find, Replace, and Select.

Find

Here’s how to make the computer search through your document to find whether you’ve used the word “love”:

Suppose you’ve written a history of America and want to find the part where you started talking about Lincoln. If you forget what page that was, no problem! Just put the cursor at the beginning of the document, click Find, type “Lincoln”, and press Enter.

Replace

You can search for a word and replace it with a different word. For example, here’s how to change each “love” in your document to “idolize”:

The computer preserves capitalization. For example, if the document said —

the computer changes it to:

Notice that when told to change “love” to “idolize”, the computer unfortunately also changes “glove” to “gidolize”.

The Replace command helps you zip through many chores:

Select

To select everything in the document (so the whole document is highlighted in blue), use one of these methods:

If you formatted a phrase (such as by underlining or bolding or italicizing or making the font bigger), here’s how to find all other phrases that have been formatted the same way:

For example, suppose your document’s only formatting is that you underlined some words. Here’s how to make all those underlined words become bold also:

 

Near the screen’s top, you see this tab bar:

Each word or phrase on that tab bar is called a tab.

If you click the Home tab, you see the 5 groups I discussed (Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, and Editing). If you click a different tab instead, you see different groups:

Page Layout tab

Click the Page Layout tab.

Margins Normally, Microsoft Word 2007 leaves a 1-inch margin at all 4 edges of your paper. If you want margins that are wider or narrower, click “Margins” (in the Page Setup group). Then click one of these popular choices:

Size In the U.S., a normal sheet of paper is 8½ inches wide and 11 inches tall. Microsoft Word 2007 assumes your paper is that size. If you want to print on paper that’s a different size, click “Size” (in the Page Setup group) then the paper’s size. (To see all the choices, point at the scroll bar, which is below the up-arrow, and drag that scroll bar down.)

In the U.S., these sizes are the most popular:

Pick a size your printer can handle!

Orientation When an artist paints a portrait of a face, the canvas’s height is usually bigger than its width. That situation (height bigger than width) is called portrait orientation.

When an artist paints a landscape (showing many trees and hills), the canvas’s width is usually bigger than its height. That situation (width bigger than height) is called landscape orientation.

The computer assumes you want portrait orientation (height bigger than width). For example, if you tell the computer to print on paper that’s 8½ inches by 11 inches, the computer assumes you want the height to be bigger than the width, so it assumes you want height to be 11 inches and the width to be 8½ inches.

You can force the computer to do landscape orientation instead, so the width is bigger than the height, and so the width is 11 inches and the height is 8½ inches. That makes the paper wide, so you can fit more words on each line. To do that, click “Orientation” (in the Page Setup group) then “Landscape”.

To accomplish landscape printing, the computer & printer rotate the paper or words 90 degrees.

For example, to print on a Statement (8½ inches wide and 5½ inches tall) or a #10 Envelope (9½ inches wide and 4¹/₈ inches tall), tell the computer to do landscape printing (by clicking “Orientation” then “Landscape”).

Columns In a newspaper, text is printed in many narrow columns. In a business letter, text is printed in a single wide column.

The computer assumes you want a single wide column. If you want several narrow columns instead (like a newspaper or magazine), click “Columns” (in the Page Setup group). Then click one of these popular choices:

The gap between each pair of columns is a half-inch wide.

After you’ve finished typing a paragraph (and pressed Enter), try this experiment: while holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys, press Enter again. That creates a column break: it makes the next paragraph be at the top of the next column. (If you change your mind here’s how to remove the column break: click at the beginning of the paragraph you’ve put at the top of a column, then press the Backspace key.

Breaks Here’s how to divide your document into two sections and give each section its own margins and its own number of columns:

Line Numbers If you plan to mail the document to a friend and then chat about it by phone, you should number each line, so you can ask your friend “What do you think about line 27?” To make the computer number the lines for you (by writing the numbers in the left margin), click “Line Numbers” (in the Page Setup group). Then click either “Continuous” (which makes the computer number the lines 1, 2, 3, etc., until the document’s end) or “Restart Each Page” (which makes each page’s first line be numbered 1, each page’s second line be numbered 2, etc.).

When you finish chatting with your friend and don’t need the line numbers anymore, here’s how to erase them: click “Line Numbers” then “None”.

Watermark If you click “Watermark” (in the Page Background group), you see a menu that includes these phrases: “CONFIDENTIAL”, “DO NOT COPY”, “DRAFT”, “SAMPLE”, “ASAP”, “URGENT”. (To see all those phrases, point at the scroll bar, which is below the up-arrow, and drag that scroll bar down.) If you click one of those phrases, the computer will stamp that phrase on every page of your document. The phrase will be in huge gray letters, in the middle of every page, so it’s stamped across each page’s paragraphs. The phrase is called a watermark.

If you don’t like any of those phrases, make up your own! Here’s how:

If you change your mind and want to remove the watermark, click “Watermark” then “Remove Watermark”.

Insert tab

Click the Insert tab.

Symbol If you click “Symbol” (which is in the Symbols group), you see the symbols you used recently. If you haven’t used any symbols yet, you see these:

If you want to use one of those symbols now, click it. If you want a different symbol instead, do the following.…

Click “More Symbols”. You see the Symbol window.

You see many symbols. If you want one of those symbols, double-click it. If you don’t like any of those symbols, view different symbols by using the scroll arrows or clicking “Special Characters” or the Font box’s down-arrow.

If you click the Font box’s down-arrow, you see a list of different fonts. Scroll down to see the different font choices. For best results, click one of these 6 fonts:

For example, if you click “Wingdings” you see these pictorial characters:

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(To see them all, scroll down by clicking that window’s first down-arrow.)

If you click “Wingdings 2” instead, you see these:

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If you click “Wingdings 3” instead, you see these:

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If you click “Webdings”, you see fancier drawings:

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For fun with young kids, point at those Webdings and play a game of “Do you know what this is?”

If you click “Symbol”, you see math, Greek, and card suits:

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Whenever you see a character you like, double-click it. That makes the computer put the character into your document. Then double-click any other characters you like.

When you finish using the Symbol window, make it disappear by clicking the button that says “Close” on it.

Warning: your printer might be too stupid to print those symbols, especially if the font is “(normal text)”. Instead of printing a symbol, the printer might just leave a blank space. Before giving the printout to a friend, look at the printout yourself to make sure the symbols printed correctly and clearly.

Date & Time To type the date or time, click Date & Time (which is in the Text group). The computer will show a list of formats, like this:

Click the format you want. Press Enter. The computer will type the date or time in the format you requested.

In that procedure, just before you press Enter, you might wish to put a check mark in the “Update automatically” box. Here’s how that box works:

Page Number To make the computer put a page number on each page, click Page Number (which is in the Header & Footer group). Then click “Top of Page” (if you want the number to be in each page’s top-margin area called the header) or “Bottom of Page” (if you want the number to be in each page’s bottom-margin area called the footer).

Click “Plain Number 2”. That makes the page number have plain style #2 (centered instead of near the paper’s left edge or right edge).

You see the page number, on the current page. (The computer has automatically put page numbers on all the other pages also.)

Do you want any words to appear to the left of the page number? If so, type them then press the Space bar. For example, if you want the 2^nd page to say “This is page 2” instead of just “2”, type “This is page” then press the Space bar.

Do you want any words to appear to the right of the page number? If so, press the right-arrow key then the Space bar then type those words. For example, if you want the 2^nd page to say “This is page 2 of the great American novel” and you’ve already typed “This is page ”, press the right-arrow key (to move past the page number) then the Space bar (to leave 1 blank space after the page number) then type “of the great American novel”.

Whatever words you put to the left and right of the page number appear on all the other page numbers also.

When you finish editing the page number’s line, double-click in the screen’s middle. Then you can continue editing your document’s paragraphs.

If you want to edit the page number’s line again, double-click in the middle of that line.

Table To type a table of numbers in the middle of your document, click where you want the table to appear then click Table (which is in the Tables group).

You see 100 little boxes (called cells), arranged to form a table having 10 rows and 10 columns. How many rows and columns do you want in your table? Point at the first cell (box) and drag down and to the right, until your desired number of rows and columns turns orange. For example, if you want just 3 rows and 4 columns, drag down and to the right until 3 rows and 4 columns turn orange, so you see 12 orange cells altogether.

When you take your finger off the mouse’s button, you’ll see the table you requested.

Then just fill in the cells, with whatever numbers and words you wish. To move from cell to cell, click with the mouse, or press the Tab key (which moves right to the next cell), or press Shift with Tab (which moves left to the previous cell), or press the arrow keys repeatedly.

In a cell, you can type a number, word, sentence, or even an entire paragraph! If you start typing a paragraph in a cell, the computer will automatically make the cell and its row taller, so the entire paragraph will fit in the cell. You can even type several paragraphs in a single cell: just press the Enter key at the end of each paragraph. If you want to indent the first line of one of those paragraphs, press the Space bar several times or press Ctrl with Tab.

Here’s how to make the table have more cells.

The computer assumes you want the table’s columns to all be the same width. Here’s how to change that assumption:

If a column contains mostly numbers, here’s how to make that column look prettier, so the numbers are aligned properly:

When you’ve finished typing numbers and words into all the cells, here’s how to make the computer adjust the widths of all the columns, so each column becomes just wide enough to hold the data in it:

When you’ve finished editing the table, here’s how to put paragraphs below it:

Here’s how to delete a row or column:

Here’s how to delete the entire table:

Here’s how to create a table that has a customized shape.

References tab

Click the References tab.

Insert Footnote Suppose you’re writing a religious pamphlet in which you want to say “Read it in the Bible tonight!” Suppose you want to add a footnote saying “written by God”, so the main text looks like this —

and the page’s bottom contains this footnote:

Here’s how to do it all.…

Type “Read it in the Bible”. Click “Insert Footnote” (which is in the Footnotes group) or, while holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys, tap the F key. Type the footnote (“Written by God.”). Go back to the main text, where you left off, by using one of these methods:

The computer will automatically number the footnote: it will automatically type ¹ after “Bible” and type ¹ before “Written by God.” If your document contains more footnotes, the computer will automatically number them ², ³, ⁴, etc. (Those numbers are easy to read on paper. On the screen, the numbers are easier to read while the Home tab’s ¶ button is deactivated.)

The computer will put the footnotes at the bottom of the page. If the page is divided into newspaper columns, the computer will put each footnote at the bottom of the column it refers to.

The computer will put a 2-inch horizontal line above the footnotes to separate them from the main text.

If you insert extra footnotes, the computer will automatically renumber the other footnotes, so the first footnote appearing in your document will be numbered ¹, the second footnote will be numbered ², etc.

Here’s the easiest way to delete a footnote:

View tab

Click the View tab.

Ruler If you put a check mark in the Ruler box (by clicking there), you’ll see a ruler (saying 1", 2", 3") above the page and another ruler at the screen’s left edge. Those rulers show how many inches will be printed on paper.

Afterwards, you’ll seeing rulers even when you’re viewing other documents and even on other days, until you cancel the rulers (by removing the check mark from the Ruler box).

Split To see two parts of your document at the same time, click Split (which is in the Window group). A fat gray line appears across the middle of your screen and splits your screen’s window into two parts, a top windowpane and a
bottom windowpane.

Move the mouse slightly (which moves the fat gray line slightly up or down), until you’re happy about the line’s position. Then click the mouse’s left button.

Now you can see two parts of your document at the same time!

Each windowpane has its own scroll arrows. You can click those scroll arrows to change what you see in that windowpane, without changing what’s in the other windowpane.

You can also click in one windowpane’s text and then use the keyboard’s movement keys (up-arrow, down-arrow, left-arrow, right-arrow, Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End) to change what’s in that windowpane, without changing what you see in the other windowpane.

Both windowpanes show parts of the same document. If you change a word in one windowpane (by deleting or inserting or revising that word), while the other windowpane happens to show the same part of the document, you see that word automatically change in the other windowpane also, immediately!

Using those two windowpanes, you can compare two parts of your document and copy from one part to the other (by using the Home tab’s Copy and Paste buttons or using Ctrl C and Ctrl V).

When you stop wanting two windowpanes, here’s how to return to a single pane:

Arrange All Here’s how to see two documents on the screen at once!

Each window is small, showing just a tiny part of the document. A window might seem blank if it’s so small that it shows just the document’s top margin.

Each window has its own scroll arrows. Use them to scroll through the documents and see the parts of the documents that are not blank.

By using those two windows, you can easily compare two documents and copy from one to the other (by using the Home tab’s Copy and Paste buttons or using Ctrl C and Ctrl V).

When you stop wanting one of the windows, close it (by clicking its X button), then expand the other window (by clicking its maximize button, which is next to its X button).

Help button

At the tab bar’s rightmost edge, you see a question mark. To get help about using Microsoft Word, click that question mark or press the F1 key. (You’ll get the best help if you connect to the Internet before doing that, so Microsoft can give you the newest help lessons.)

You see the Word Help window, which contains this list of popular topics:

(To see all those topics, click the scroll-down arrow at the window’s bottom-right corner).

Then you’ll see a list of subtopics. (To see them all, click the scroll-down arrow at the window’s bottom-right corner.) Click whichever subtopic interests you. You’ll see a lesson about that subtopic.

If you want to return to a previous list of topics or subtopics, click the Back button (the left arrow at the window’s top-left corner). When you finish using the Word Help window, close it (by clicking the X button at its top-right corner).