Of all the word-processing programs ever invented, the fanciest and most popular is Microsoft Word. Versions of Microsoft Word have been invented for DOS, Windows, and the Mac.

If you’re using a DOS version of Microsoft Word, it’s primitive! Switch to a Windows version.

The Mac versions of Microsoft Word resemble the Windows versions. Here’s the main difference: instead of pressing a Ctrl key, press the Mac’s Command key (on which you’ll see a squiggly cloverleaf — and also see an apple if your keyboard is modern).

Microsoft Word for Windows is nicknamed Winword. It’s gone through several versions:

This chapter explains how to use versions 2007 and 2010. If you’re using version 2002 or 2003, read the next chapter instead. If you’re using version 6, 7, 97, or 2000, read the 28^th edition instead, which you can get by phoning me at 603-666-6644. If you’re using version 1, 1.1, or 2, switch to a newer version.

 

Here’s how to enjoy using Microsoft Word.

Prepare yourself

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

Install

Here’s how to put Microsoft Word onto your computer.

Version 2010 Microsoft Word 2010 in intended to be used with Windows 7 but will also run on Windows XP & Vista (which are older). I’ll assume you have Windows 7. (The procedures for Windows XP & Vista are similar.)

Microsoft Word 2010 is part of Microsoft Office 2010, which you can get in many ways. For example, here’s how to copy a 60-day-trial version of Microsoft Office Professional 2010 from the Internet to your hard disk, free:

Version 2007 Microsoft Word 2007 is intended to be used with Windows Vista (which was invented at the same time) but will also run on Windows XP (which is older) and Windows 7 (which is newer).

I’ll assume you have Windows Vista. (The procedures for Windows 7 & XP are similar.)

Microsoft Word 2007 is part of Microsoft Office 2007, which usually comes on a DVD disk that you (or your computer store) must copy to your hard disk, by doing this:

If your computer came with a free trial version of Microsoft Office Home & Student edition, install it by doing this:

Starting

To start using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010, click the Start button (at the screen’s bottom-left corner).

If you see “Microsoft Office Word 2007” or “Microsoft Word 2010”, click it. (Otherwise, click “All Programs” then “Microsoft Office” then “Microsoft Office Word 2007” or “Microsoft Word 2010”.)

Hassles

If the computer says “This copy has expired”, here’s what happens:

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

If the computer says “Help Protect and Improve Microsoft Office”, click the circle under “Use Recommended Settings” and press Enter.

If the computer asks “Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?” click “Yes”.

See the Microsoft Word screen

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

(Version 2007 lacks “File”.)

Type your document

Start typing your document.

Microsoft Word typically uses the keyboard the same way as WordPad. For details, read these sections on pages 81-82:

Here are differences.…

Enter key Microsoft Word automatically leaves a slight gap between the paragraphs, to separate them.

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 should 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 (“century” and “sentry”) 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 suggest what the squiggled word should 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 popular 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:

Version 2007 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, where you see this longer list of “hot” synonyms and antonyms, grouped into 4 categories:

(Version 2007 lacks some of those choices.) If you click one of those words, the computer will show you that word’s synonyms. 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 22 languages: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and others!

This method translates your entire document immediately to 21 languages but requires you to first connect to the Internet.

Here’s an easier method, but it translates just to Spanish or French, just from English, just occasional words, and works just in version 2007 (not version 2010):

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 Microsoft Word uses the zoom slider the same way as WordPad 7, which I explained on page 83.

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 screeen’s top-left corner, 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. (Windows 7 puts it into the Documents library’s “My Documents” folder instead.) 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 left edge, very close to the top, you see the File-office button. (In version 2010, it says “File”. In version 2007, it’s a circle with the Microsoft Office symbol inside it.)

Click it. Then you see the File-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 File-office menu (by clicking the word “Save” after clicking the File-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 File-office menu (by clicking the phrase “Save As” after clicking the File-office button); when you do that, make sure you click the phrase “Save As”, not any 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 document’s new, edited version onto the hard disk. That new, edited version will have the new name you invented.

The document’s old original version 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 File-office menu (by clicking the word “Print” after clicking the File-office button); when you do that, make sure you click the word “Print”, not any arrow next to it.

The computer assumes you want to print just 1 copy of the document. If you want to print several copies, do this:

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

How to finish

When you finish working on a document, choose Exit or Close from the File-office menu.

Exit If you choose Exit, the computer will stop using Microsoft Word. (Version 2007 says “Exit Word” instead of just “Exit”.)

Close If you choose Close instead of Exit, 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 File-office menu then do this:

If you want to use an old document, do this:

From that list, click whichever document you want to use. If you want to use an older document (not on that list), 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 the Save button (which version 2007 calls “Yes”), the computer copies your document’s most recent version to the hard disk; if you click the Don’t Save button instead (which version 2007 calls “No”), the computer ignores and forgets your most recent editing.

How to erase the recently-used list The list of recently-used documents 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:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Version 2007 lacks A.)

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.

Advanced fonts

Microsoft Word handles advanced fonts the same way as WordPad 7. For details, read these sections on pages 85-86:

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!

Advanced selection

Microsoft Word resembles WordPad 7, so read these sections on page 87:

Here are differences.…

Other ways to select Microsoft Word permits this extra method:

Drag a phase Microsoft Word’s vertical line is black and dotted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Clipboard group looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(If your screen isn’t wide enough to fit all those words, it hides the words “Cut”, “Copy”, and “Format Painter” but still shows their icons.)

Clipboard fundamentals

Microsoft Word handles clipboard fundamentals the same way as WordPad 7. For details, read these sections on page 87:

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

Microsoft Word handles alignment buttons the same way as WordPad 7. For details, read “Alignment buttons” on page 88.

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 put 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:

 

 

 

 

(If your screen isn’t wide enough to show all those styles, it shows just the first 4.)

Visible styles

The first 4 styles are 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 beginning of a table of styles. To see the whole table (which includes 16 styles), click the down-arrow that has a dash over it. Here’s a quick summary of the most popular styles:

If you click one of those 16 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. The computer can produce up to Heading 9. Here are the differences:

Traditional fonts

Microsoft made Calibri the normal font for Microsoft Word 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 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 16 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”.

Modern method (just in version 2010) Click the word “Find” (or press Ctrl with F). At the screen’s left edge, you see the Navigation pane. Type the word you want to find (“love”), so the word appears in the Navigation pane’s box. That makes the computer highlight every “love” in your document, in yellow.

In the Navigation pane, below where you typed “love”, the computer shows a list of your phrases containing “love”. If you click in that list, that phrase’s “love” turns blue in your document.

When you finish using the Navigation pane, close it (by clicking its X). Then the yellow becomes white again.

Classic method Click where you want the search to begin. (For example, if you want the search to begin at the document’s beginning, click in the middle of the document’s first word.)

Then do this….

Type the word you want to find (“love”), and press Enter.

The computer will search for “love”. If the computer finds a “love” in your document, it will highlight that “love” so it turns blue. (If the “Find and Replace” window covers the part of your document that says “love”, drag that window out of the way, by dragging “Find and Replace”.)

If you want to find the next “love” in your document, press Enter.

If you click “Reading Highlight” then “Highlight All”, the computer will immediately highlight every “love” in your document, in yellow (unless you changed the highlighting pen’s color).

Highlighting disappears when you edit the document.

If you do not want to search for more “love”, click the “Find and Replace” window’s X (or press the Esc key).

Blue arrows After you’ve searched, the previous-page and next-page arrows (at the screen’s bottom right corner) turn blue. Clicking them will make the computer find the previous or next “love” (instead of the previous or next page).

Example: Lincoln 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 and tell the computer to find “Lincoln”.

Replace

Microsoft Word handles replacement the same way as WordPad 7. For details, read “Replace” on page 89.

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:

(Version 2007 lacks “File”.)

Each word or phrase on the 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 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 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 80 little boxes (called cells), arranged to form a table having 8 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.

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 be 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).

References tab

Click the References tab.

Insert Footnote Suppose you’re writing a religious pamphlet in which you want to say “Read 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 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:

Help button

To the right of the tab bar, at the screen’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) or enlarge the window (by maximizing it or dragging its bottom-right corner).

If one of those topics interests you, click it.

If none of those topics interests you, click “see all”, which shows you this longer list of topics:

If one of those topics interests you, click it. If none of those topics interests you, click in the Search box (the white box at the window’s top) then type the question you want help about (or type your topic’s main words) and press Enter.

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).