MODULE 2:

MICROSOFT WORD FEATURES

 Module 2: Microsoft Word Features

1. Documents and Microsoft Word Templates

When you open up this tool, you’ll be prompted to “create” one of these two: a blank  document or a new/ existing
Microsoft word template.

 Documents are essentially like text files that support complex formatting. Each format has a page size and a
layout.
 Microsoft word templates are essentially pre-defined formats.

2. The Tabbed Ribbon in newer versions of Microsoft Word Features

Newer versions of Microsoft Word Features (2007 and above) come with the now-famous “Ribbon,” which is a sequence
of Screens that capture all the capabilities of your Microsoft Word templates Software application.
Through this, MS Word makes its utilities available to use. The ribbon, in turn, contains:

1. Tabs
Each tab is an individual screen available on the ribbon. Commonly used tabs include home (the default tab that opens up
when you open a word document), file (for file operations like save, new, etc.), insert, page layout, view, etc.

2. Commands
These enable you to use your Microsoft Word templates software to do something to your word document (or post,
template, etc.). While you can simply type out your text in the document, commands empower you to format/ insert/
handle this text in multiple ways.

3. Command Groups
Commands are grouped together based on their functionality for easy access. For instance, basic text-formatting
commands are put together in one group, paragraph formatting commands in another group, and so on. In some cases,
you’ll see a tiny arrow at the bottom of the group. You can click on it to open up additional commands and options related
to the group.

In addition, here are some special commands available on the Ribbon:

 The caret symbol (^) at the top right-hand side corner of the Ribbon can be used to hide/show the
command/groups. This is useful when you want to review your word document in a larger screen space without
distractions.
You can customize this ribbon at any time: to add new commands to an existing group, create a new tab altogether with
your favorite commands, etc. To do this, right-click on any part of the ribbon and choose “Customize the Ribbon….”
You will become familiar with the File, Home, Page Layout and View tabs through the rest of this post, as these are
most commonly used for editing word documents.

3. The FILE Tab

When you click on the File Tab, you are immediately taken to the “Backstage View”, containing all the tiny details about
your document. We’ll keep it simple in this basic tutorial and introduce you to the frequently used file-related commands.

 Save and Save As:

This is possibly the first command you should use when you type some text. It enables you to save your document on the
hard disk as a .docx file (by default). Take note of the type of file here. If you wish to open your word document with
older versions of Microsoft Word Features, you will need to explicitly choose a backwards-compatible file type. You can
additionally choose to save your file as a PDF file, self-contained web file, text file (.txt or .rtf, formatting changes are
lost), etc.

 New, Open, Close

Names are self-explanatory as they enable you to open/close or create a new document/ blog post or template.
 Recent
This stores the list of recently accessed documents and folders so you can quickly open the last document you worked on.

 Options:
This dialog box houses the master preferences for your document and controls your display and editing options. Here, the
default setup will nicely do for most documents, so you will need to alter this only on rare occasions. But do explore each
dialogue when you’re more familiar, for an advanced understanding of Office Word.
4. The HOME Tab
The Home Tab is perhaps the most commonly used Tab in Microsoft Word Features. And it looks like this:
As you can see, this contains 5 formatting command groups. And there lies its most significant utility: formatting. You
see, this is where Microsoft Word Features wins heads over any other Word processing software tool (including
Microsoft’s own WordPad), as it provides users with a host of complex formatting Features all available with a mouse-
click or two.
Before we dig in deeper, we suggest you play around a bit with a document. Type some sentences and be prepared to edit
and format them to your heart’s content. Once you’re done, the Command groups in the Home tab can be used as below.
1. Clipboard group:
This has the mandatory copy and pastes commands. The paste command has additional options (click on the bottom-
arrow symbol below) to paste formatted/ unformatted text/pictures. Also, spend time with Office Word’s special
command, “Format Painter,” which allows you to paste formatting across text blocks.

Select a portion of text from anywhere in your document (using the Shift Key).

 Use the Keyboard shortcut (Control + B + I). This will make the selected text bold and italicized. Copy this
selected text using the (Control + C); these copies everything in Word, text, and formatting.
 Now, select some other portion of (plain) text in your document and click on the Format Painter command.
And voila, the formatting (alone) gets copied!
This is especially useful when formatting long documents with complex styles; you don’t have to repeat your special
formatting needs across pages of a document. Capture

them through the copy command and then “paste” them all over using the Format Painter command! which allows you to
paste formatting
2. Font group:
Here, we’ll tell you to highlight text in your document and have a free play with this group. (There’s no better way to
become familiar with Microsoft Word introduction font options). You can set the font typeface for text (based on your
system’s inbuilt fonts), and change its look (includes size, bold, italics, underline, superscript, subscript, color highlight,
etc.) and use Microsoft Word introduction Art to add instant drama to your text. Also, explore the command that changes
the casing of selected text with just one click, to uppercase, lowercase, sentence case, etc. (refer pic above for details).
Microsoft Word introduction also provides for more advanced options through a single right-click of your mouse. Again,
try this right now as you select some text, right-click, and choose the “Font…” option.

This window has advanced options that give you greater control of your text. Of special interest are the  “Text Effects”
and “Advanced” tabs to capture Microsoft Word introduction coveted formatting Features. You can add shadows and
reflections to your text, give it an outer glow, change the spacing between letters, and a lot more.
3. Paragraph:
The Paragraph command group allows you to control the alignment, numbering and line spacing of paragraphs in your
document.

Do take note of:

 Text alignment: This determines how your text looks on your page and is left-aligned by default.
 Line spacing: This is the space between lines and is a single line spaced by default.
 Line and Page Breaks: This determines how a Style spawns across pages. For instance, if you check the
“Widow/Orphan control” option, then when text with a Heading style falls towards the end of a page, it will
automatically be bumped to the top of the next page.
4. Styles:
Styles are formatting templates used within a document. For instance, you’ll notice that all the  Major Headings in this
document are in blue, Georgia font size 16, bold and italicized, and have a light shadow. Likewise, all Minor
Headings are in Italics, Georgia size 14. Now imagine that you want to consistently capture these format “styles” through
a large text document (say 100 pages). Even with the Format-Painter command, it’s a lot of work. It’s also prone to
manual error. With styles, you can do this with minimal effort.
Microsoft Word introduction comes in-built with default style templates like Title, Sub-Title, Heading1, Heading2, Body
Text, Normal, etc. To apply a style to your text, select text and click on the chosen style in the command window. You
can additionally right-click on the style and “modify” it as desired. You can alter the font settings, text effects, paragraph
settings (explained below) and other options in your document, all through the “Format tab” of the Style edit window.
Word also allows you to add your own custom styles. For this:

 Select formatted text.

 Right-click and select Styles…
 Choose the option, “Save Selection as a New Click Style”.
 Name your custom style.
However, custom styles are limited within the document in use (not available as a template in other documents).
5. Editing:
The final command group available in the Home Tab is the Editing tab. Like any good word processor, Microsoft
Word introduction allows you to easily select, find and find-and-replace text blocks across your document. Of this, you
can bring up the much-used find-replace dialog box with the Keyboard shortcut (Control + H), and it looks like this:
Do remember to click on the “More>>” button to bring up additional options. You can further choose the “Format” and
“Special” boxes to find text based on specific formatting criteria.
So that was the Home Tab in a nutshell. Phew! But as you are sure to have noticed, more than 50% of your most used
commands lie in this Tab. Explore this thoroughly until you’re comfortable with it, as this will determine your success
with the Microsoft Word introduction.
5. The Page Layout Tab
This tab contains a host of command (groups) to control the behavior of each page in your document. And it roughly
looks like this:

We’re going to keep it simple here and discuss (only) the Page Setup command group as this houses 2 commands you will
most likely need to play with.
 Size:
By default, a Microsoft Word Features document is set to a letter’s size (8.5” X 11”). You can change this to A4, A3,
Executive or other standard sizes or even define a custom size. Changes will apply to the whole document.
 Orientation:
By default, this is set to “Portrait”; you can alternatively set it to Landscape. Again, the orientation applies to the whole
document by default. (You can alter this by setting specific “Section Breaks”, but this is outside the scope of this
Beginner’s guide).

 Breaks:
The most commonly used “Break” in a Microsoft Word Features document is a Page Beak. When you insert a page break,
the following text is bumped to a new page; This is immensely useful when you want to start new chapters/ headings on a
fresh page.
 6.
The View Tab
The View Tab is the final list of command (groups) we will visit in this guide. Here, take special note of the “Document
Views” command group, as this is perhaps the most reviewed group.

Highlights of this view are captured below.

 The “Print Layout” command allows you to showcase your text page at the center and view it much like how it
would appear when printed on paper.
 In this view, you can further use the “Zoom” command (group) to increase or decrease the size of your page
(impacts only the view and not the actual page size).
 The Full-Screen Reading view allows you to remove all toolbar distractions and is best used to review a
document. Pressing the Escape key will bring you back to the (default) Print Layout view.
 The Web Layout view is typically used to review Blog posts.
 You can additionally toggle views of the Ruler, Gridlines and Navigation Pane (useful to search key text in your
document) using the “Show” command group.

And that marks the end of our Beginner’s guide to knowing Microsoft Word Features!

7. Next Steps
As a beginner, your encounter with Word is sure to open up endless possibilities, for better formatting, for a cleaner layout
and alignment, for an overall superior experience with any digital word processing tool. We encourage you to actively
explore Microsoft word Features software on your own, even as you look to more advanced micro-tutorials for guidance.
Your efforts will be well worth it!
https://www.educba.com/microsoft-word-Features/