Word Articles

Step by Step / Updated 08-27-2024

Traditional Word users may be really disappointed that pressing the Ctrl+F key in Word 2013 summons the Navigation pane. They want Ctrl+F to bring forth the traditional Find dialog box, the one that’s now called the Advanced Find dialog box. To make that happen, follow these steps:

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-01-2022

If you are using Microsoft Word 2013, this Cheat Sheet will help you use it more efficiently with a list of handy keyboard shortcuts, special-character shortcuts, and some tips and tricks.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-25-2022

Word is one of the most used computer programs on the planet. Helping you to compose text is one of the things that computers do well, but that doesn’t make the text-writing chore easier or imply that using Word is simple enough that you don’t need help. So enjoy this Cheat Sheet.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 11-22-2021

Word is one of the most used computer programs on the planet. Helping you to compose text is one of the things that computers do well, but that doesn’t make the text-writing chore easier or imply that using Word 2021 is simple enough that you don’t need help. So, enjoy this Cheat Sheet.

Article / Updated 01-08-2019

The door to Word’s graphical closet is found on the Insert tab. The command buttons nestled in the Illustrations group place various graphical goobers into the text. Here’s how the process works for pictures and graphical images: Click the mouse at the spot in the text where you desire the image to appear. You don’t need to be precise, because you can always move the image later. Click the Insert tab. Use one of the command buttons to choose which type of image to add. You can also paste a previously copied image. The figure illustrates how a freshly added image looks, highlighting some of its features. While the image is selected, a new tab appears on the Ribbon. For pictures, it’s the Picture Tools Format tab; for other types of graphics, the Drawing Tools Format tab appears. Both tabs offer tools to help you perfect the recently inserted graphic. Beyond pictures and images, shapes are drawn on the page. In this case, they appear in front of or behind the text. To remove an image, click to select it and then tap the Delete key. If the graphical object, such as a shape, contains text, ensure that you’ve clicked the object’s border before you tap the Delete key. The more graphics you add in Word, the more sluggish it becomes. My advice: Write first. Add graphics last. Save often. How to copy and paste an image in Word 2019 A simple way to stick an image into a document is to paste it in from elsewhere. Follow these steps: Select the image in another program or from the web. Press Ctrl+C to copy the image. For a web page image, right-click and choose the Copy or Copy Image command. Switch to the Word document window. In Windows, press the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut to deftly switch program windows. In Word, position the insertion pointer where you want the image to dwell. Press Ctrl+V to paste the image into the document. If the image doesn’t paste, it might be in a graphical format incompatible with Word. You can also obtain an image from the web directly, by performing a web image search from within Word: On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click the Online Pictures button. Use options in the Insert Pictures window to locate an online image, courtesy of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. How to plop down a picture in Word Your computer is most likely littered with picture files. No matter how the image was created, as long as it’s found somewhere on your PC, you can stick it into your document. Follow these steps: Click the mouse in the text where you want the image to appear. Click the Insert tab; in the Illustrations group, click the Pictures button. After clicking the Pictures button, the Insert Picture dialog box appears. Locate the image file on your PC’s storage system. Click to select the image. Click the Insert button. The image is slapped down in the document. A nifty picture to stick at the end of a letter is your signature. Use a desktop scanner to digitize your John Hancock. Save the signature as an image file on your computer, and then follow the steps in this section to insert that signature picture in the proper place in the document. Refer to the book Word 2016 For Professionals For Dummies (Wiley) for details on adding a caption to an image and creating a list of captions for the manuscript. How to slap down a shape in Word Word comes with a library of common shapes ready to insert in a document. These include basic shapes, such as squares, circles, geometric figures, lines, and arrows — plus popular symbols. Graphics professionals refer to these types of images as line art. To place some line art in a document, follow these steps: Click the Insert tab. In the Illustrations group, click the Shapes button. The button holds a menu that lists shapes organized by type. Choose a predefined shape. The mouse pointer changes to a plus sign (+). Drag to create the shape. The shape is placed into the document, floating in front of the text. At this point, you can adjust the shape: Change its size, location, or colors. Use the Drawing Tools Format tab, conveniently shown on the Ribbon while the shape is selected, to affect those changes. Instantly change the image by using the Shape Styles group on the Ribbon’s Drawing Tools Format tab. Choose a new style from the Shape Gallery. Styles are related to the document’s theme. Other items in the Shape Styles group affect the selected shape specifically: Click the Shape Fill button to set the fill color; use the Shape Outline button to set the shape’s outline color; choose an outline thickness from the Shape Outline button’s menu, on the Weight submenu; use the Shape Effects button to apply 3D effects, shadows, and other fancy formatting to the shape. To more effectively format a shape, click the Launcher in the lower right corner of the Shape Styles group. Use the Format Shape pane to manipulate settings for any selected shape in the document. How to stick things into shapes in Word Shapes need not be clunky, colorful distractions. You can use a shape to hold text or a picture, which makes them one of the more flexible graphical goobers to add to a document. To slip a smidgen of text into a shape, right-click the shape and choose the Add Text command. The insertion pointer appears within the shape. Type and format the text. To place a picture into a shape, select the shape. Click the Drawing Tools Format tab. Click the Shape Fill button and choose the Picture menu item. Use the Insert Pictures window to hunt down an image to frame inside the shape. Yes, it’s possible to have both a picture and text inside a shape. To further deal with text in a shape, click the shape and then click the Drawing Tools Format tab on the Ribbon. The Text group contains buttons to manipulate the shape’s text. To remove text from a shape, select and delete the text. To remove a picture, select a solid color from the Shape Fill menu. How to use WordArt Perhaps the most overused graphic that’s stuck into any Word document is WordArt. This feature is almost too popular. If you haven’t used it yourself, you’ve probably seen it in a thousand documents, fliers, and international treaties. Here’s how it works: Click the Insert tab. In the Text group, click the WordArt button to display the WordArt menu. word2019-wordart Choose a style from the WordArt gallery. A WordArt graphic placeholder appears in the document. Type the (short and sweet) text that you want WordArt-ified. Use the Word Art Styles group on the Drawing Tools Format tab to customize WordArt’s appearance. If you don’t see the Drawing Tools Format tab, first click the WordArt graphic.

Article / Updated 01-08-2019

With few exceptions, time travelers are the only ones who bother asking for the current year. Otherwise, people merely want to know the month and day or just the day of the week. Word understands those people (but not time travelers), so it offers a slate of tools and tricks to insert date-and-time information into a document. How to add the current date or time to Word documents Rather than look at a calendar and type a date, follow these steps: Click the Insert tab. In the Text group, click the Date and Time button. The button may say Date & Time, or you may see only the icon. word2019-date-time Use the Date and Time dialog box to choose a format. If desired, click the Update Automatically option so that the date-and-time text remains current with the document. Setting the Update Automatically ensures that the date and time values are updated when you open or print the document. Click the OK button to insert the current date or time into the document. The keyboard shortcut to insert the current date is Alt+Shift+D. To insert the current time, press Alt+Shift+T. How to use Word's PrintDate field The date field I use most often is PrintDate. This field reflects the current date (and time, if you like) when a document prints. It’s marvelous for including in a letterhead template or in another document you print frequently. Here’s how it works: Click the Insert tab. In the Text group, click Quick Parts →Field. The Field dialog bo, appears. Select Date and Time from the Categories drop-down list. Select PrintDate from the Field Names list. Choose a date-and-time format from the Field Properties area. Click OK. The field looks odd until you print the document, which makes sense. Also, the field reflects the last day you printed the document. It’s updated when you print again.

Article / Updated 01-08-2019

Word lets you add dynamic elements to a document. Unlike the text you normally compose, dynamic text changes to reflect a number of factors. To add these dynamic elements to a document, you use a Word feature called fields. Word's dynamic field feature Word’s dynamic field feature is part of the Quick Parts tools. To add a field to a document, click the Insert tab and in the Text group and click the Quick Parts button. Choose the Field command to behold the Field dialog box, shown here. The scrolling list on the left side of the Field dialog box shows categories. These represent various dynamic nuggets you can insert in a document. Choose a specific category to narrow the list of Field Names. The center and right part of the dialog box contain formats, options, and other details for a selected field. To insert the field, click the OK button. The field appears just like other text, complete with formatting and such, but the information displayed changes to reflect whatever the field represents. For example, a page number field always shows the current page. When the insertion pointer is placed inside a field, the text is highlighted with a dark gray background. It’s your clue that the text is a field and not plain text. How to add useful fields Word offers an abundance of fields you can thrust into a document. Of the lot, you might use only a smattering. These subsections assume that the Fields dialog box is open. Page numbers To ensure that the document accurately reflects the current page number, insert a current page number field: In the Field dialog box, select Numbering from the Categories drop-down list. Select Page from the Field Names list. In the Field Properties section of the Field dialog box, select a format for the page number. Click OK. The current page number appears in the document. No matter how you edit or modify the document, that number reflects the current page number. Total number of pages To insert the total number of pages in a document, heed these directions: Select Document Information from the Categories drop-down list. Select NumPages from the Field Names list. Select a format. Click OK. Word count Getting paid by the word? Stick an automatic word count at the end of the document: From the Categories list, select Document Information. Select NumWords from the Field Names list. Click OK. Document filename Many organizations place the document’s filename into a document header or footer. Rather than guess, why not use a field that contains the document’s exact name? Do this: From the Categories list, select Document Information. Select FileName from the Field Names list. In the field properties list, choose a text case format. Optionally (though recommended), put a check mark by the option Add Path to Filename. Click OK. The FileName field always reflects the name of the file, even when you change it. How to update a field Not every field updates automatically, like the page number fields. For some fields, you must perform a manual update to keep the content fresh. To do so, right-click the field and choose the Update Field command. The field’s text is refreshed. Printing fields update when you print the document. They don’t need to be manually updated. How to change a field When you don’t get the field’s text quite right — for example, you desire a date format that displays the weekday name instead of an abbreviation — right-click the field and choose the Edit Field command. Use the Field dialog box to make whatever modifications you deem necessary. How to view a field’s raw data Just as those mutants at the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes removed their human masks, you can remove a field's mask by right-clicking it and choosing the Toggle Field Codes command. For example, the FileSize field looks like this: { FILESIZE \* MERGEFORMAT } To restore the field to human-readable form, right-click it again and choose the Toggle Field Codes command. The keyboard shortcut is Alt+F9. All praise be to the bomb. How to delete fields Removing a field works almost like deleting text. Almost. The main difference is that you must press the Delete or Backspace key twice. For example, when you press Backspace to erase a field, the entire field is highlighted. It’s your clue that you're about to erase a field, not regular text. Press Backspace again to remove the field.

Article / Updated 01-08-2019

The first novel I wrote (and never published, of course) was several hundred pages long. It was saved as a single document. Word documents can be any length, but putting everything into one document can be impractical. Editing, copying and pasting, searching and replacing, and all other word processing operations become less efficient the larger the document grows. A better solution for long documents is to keep each chapter, or large chunk, as its own file. You can then take advantage of Word’s Master Document feature to group everything together when it comes time to print or publish. The master document stitches together all individual documents, or subdocuments, even continuing page numbers, headers, footers, and other ongoing elements. The result is a large document that you can print or publish. What qualifies as a large document? Anything over 100 pages qualifies, as far as I’m concerned. When writing a novel, create each chapter as its own document. Keep all those chapter documents in their own folder. Further, use document filenames to help with organization. For example, I name chapters by using numbers: The first chapter is 01, the second is 02, and so on. How to create a master document in Microsoft Word Word’s Master Document feature helps you collect and coordinate individual documents — called subdocuments — and cobble them into one large document. When you have a master document, you can assign continuous page numbers to your work, apply headers and footers throughout the entire project, and take advantage of Word’s Table of Contents, Index, and other list-generating features. To create a big, whopping document from many smaller documents — to create a master document — obey these steps: Start a new, blank document in Word. Press Ctrl+N to quickly summon a new, blank document. Save the document. Yeah, I know — you haven’t yet written anything. Don’t worry: By saving now, you get ahead of the game and avoid some weird error messages. Switch to Outline view. Click the View tab, and then click the Outline button. On the Outlining tab in the Master Document group, click the Show Document button. The Master Document group is instantly repopulated with more buttons. One of these is the Insert button, used to build the master document. Click the Insert button. Use the Insert Subdocument dialog box to hunt down the first document to insert in the master document. The documents must be inserted in order. I hope you used a clever document-naming scheme. Click the Open button to stick the document in the master document. The document appears in the window, but it’s ugly because Outline view is active. Don’t worry: It won’t be ugly when it is printed! If you’re asked a question about conflicting styles, click the Yes to All button. It keeps all subdocument styles consistent with the master document. (Although it’s best when all documents use the same document template.) Word sets itself up for you to insert the next document: Repeat Steps 5–7 to build the master document. Save the master document when you’ve finished inserting all subdocuments. At this point, the master document is created. It’s what you use to print or save the entire, larger document. You can still edit and work on the individual documents. Any changes you make are reflected in the master document. In fact, the only time you really need to work in the master document is when you choose to edit the headers and footers, create a table of contents, or work on other items that affect the entire document. When you’re ready, you can publish the master document just as you publish any individual document. Use the Collapse Subdocuments button to hide all subdocument text. For example, if you need to create a table of contents or work on the master document’s headers and footers, collapsing the subdocuments makes the process easier. Alas, the master document method isn’t perfect. It’s good for printing, but for creating an eBook, it’s better to use a single large document instead of multiple documents poured into a master document. How to split a Microsoft Word document Splitting a document isn’t a part of creating a master document, but it might be the way you start. If you write your novel as one long document, I recommend that you split it into smaller documents. A simple shortcut doesn’t exist; instead, you have to cut and paste to create smaller documents out of a huge one. Here’s how to split a document: Select half the document — the portion you want to split into a new document. Or, if you’re splitting a document into several pieces, select the first chunk that you want to plop into a new document. For example, split the document at the chapter breaks or a main heading break. Cut the selected block. Press Ctrl+X to cut the block. Summon a new, blank document. Ctrl+N does the trick. Or, if you’re using a template (and you should be), start a new document with that template. Paste the document portion. Press Ctrl+V to paste. If the text doesn’t paste in with the proper formatting, click the Home tab, and in the Clipboard group, click the Paste button. Click the Keep Source Formatting command button. Save the new document. Continue splitting the larger document by repeating these steps. After you’ve finished splitting the larger document, you can safely delete it.

Article / Updated 01-08-2019

Good writers use an outline to organize their thoughts. Back in the old days, an outline would dwell on a stack of 3-by-5 cards. Today, an outline is a Word document, which makes it easier to not confuse your outline with grandma’s recipes. Word’s Outline view presents a document in a unique way. It takes advantage of Word’s heading styles to help you group and organize thoughts, ideas, or plotlines in a hierarchical fashion. Outline tools make it easy to shuffle around topics, make subtopics, and mix in text to help organize your thoughts. Even if you’re not a writer, you can use Word’s Outline mode to create lists, work on projects, or look busy when the boss comes around. Entering Outline view To enter Outline view, click the View tab, and in the Views group, click the Outline button. The document’s presentation changes to show Outline view, and the Outlining tab appears on the Ribbon, as shown. To exit Outline view, click the View tab and choose another document view. You can also click the big, honkin’ Close Outline View button. A squat, horizontal bar marks the end of the outline. You cannot delete that bar. All basic Word commands work in Outline view. You can use the cursor keys, delete text, check spelling, save, insert oddball characters, print, and so on. Don't worry about the text format in Outline view; outlining is not about formatting. Word uses the Heading 1 through Heading 9 styles for the outline’s topics. Main topics are formatted in Heading 1, subtopics in Heading 2, and so on. Use the Body or Normal style to make notes or add text to the outline. An outline isn’t a special type of document; it’s a different view. You can switch between Outline view and any other view and the document’s contents don’t change. Typing topics in the Microsoft Word outline Outlines are composed of topics and subtopics. Topics are main ideas; subtopics describe the details. Subtopics can contain their own subtopics, going down to several levels of detail. The amount of detail you use depends on how organized you want to be. To create a topic, type the text. Word automatically formats the topic using a specific heading style based on the topic level, as shown. Keep the main topic levels short and descriptive. Deeper topics can go into more detail. Press the Enter key when you’re done typing one topic and want to start another. Use the Enter key to split a topic. For example, to split the topic Pots and Pans, replace the word and with a press of the Enter key. To join two topics, press the End key to send the insertion pointer to the end of the first topic. Then press the Delete key. This method works just like joining two paragraphs in a regular document. Don’t worry about organizing the outline when you first create it. In Word’s Outline view, you can rearrange topics as your ideas solidify. My advice is to start writing things down now and concentrate on organization later. How to rearrange topics in Microsoft Word Outlines are fluid. As you work, some topics may become more important and others less important. To these changes, you can move a topic up or down: Click the Move Up button (or press Alt+Shift+↑) to move a topic up a line. Click the Move Down button (or press Alt+Shift+↓) to move a topic down a line. You can also drag a topic up or down: Point the mouse pointer at the circle to the topic’s left. When the mouse is positioned just right, the mouse pointer changes to a 4-way arrow. I recommend using this trick only when you’re moving topics a short distance; dragging beyond the current screen can prove unwieldy. If you need to move a topic and all its subtopics, first collapse the topic. When the topic is expanded, only the topic itself is moved. How to demote and promote topics in Microsoft Word Outline organization also includes demoting topics that are really subtopics and promoting subtopics to a higher level. Making such adjustments is a natural part of working in Outline view. Click the Demote button (or press Alt+Shift+→) to demote a topic into a subtopic. Click the Promote button (or press Alt+Shift+←) to promote a topic. New topics you type are created at the same level as the topic above (where you pressed the Enter key). To instantly make any topic a main-level topic, click the Promote to Heading 1 button. You can use the mouse to promote or demote topics: Drag the topic’s circle left or right. I admit that this move can be tricky, which is why I use the keyboard shortcuts or buttons on the Ribbon to promote or demote topics. You don’t really create subtopics in Word as much as you demote higher-level topics. Promoting or demoting a topic changes the paragraph format. For example, demoting a top-level topic changes the style from Heading 1 to Heading 2. The subtopic also appears indented on the screen. The Level menu in the Outlining tab’s Outline Tools group changes to reflect the current topic level. You can also use this item’s drop-down list to promote or demote the topic to any specific level in the outline. Unlike with main topics, you can get wordy with subtopics. After all, the idea here is to expand on the main topic. According to Those Who Know Such Things, you must have at least two subtopics for them to qualify as subtopics. When you have only one subtopic, either you have a second main topic or you’ve created a text topic. How to expand and collapse topics in Microsoft Word A detailed outline is wonderful, the perfect tool to help you write that novel, organize a meeting, or set priorities. To help you pull back from the detail and see the Big Picture, you can collapse all or part of an outline. Even when you’re organizing, sometimes it helps to collapse a topic to help keep it in perspective. Any topic with subtopics shows a plus sign (+) in its circle. To collapse the topic and temporarily hide its subtopics, you have several choices: Click the Collapse button on the Outlining toolbar. Press the Alt+Shift+_ (underline) keyboard shortcut. Double-click the plus sign to the topic’s left. When a topic is collapsed, it features a fuzzy underline, in addition to a plus sign in the icon to the topic’s left. To expand a collapsed topic, you have several choices: Click the Expand button on the Outlining toolbar. Press Alt+Shift++ (plus sign). Click the topic’s plus sign. The fastest way to display an outline at a specific topic level is to choose that level from the Show Level drop-down list. To find that command, look on the Outlining toolbar, in the Outline Tools group. For example, to show only Level 1 and Level 2 topics, choose Level 2 from the Show Level button’s menu. Topics at Level 3 and higher remain collapsed. To see the entire outline, choose Show All Levels from the Show Level menu. When some of the subtopics get wordy, place a check mark by the Show First Line Only option. (Look on the Outlining tab in the Outline Tools group for this setting.) When it’s active, Word displays only the first topic line of text in any topic. How to add a text topic to a Microsoft Word outline Creating an outline can potentially be about writing text. When the mood hits you, write! Rather than write prose as a topic, use the Demote to Body Text command. Here’s how: Press the Enter key to start a new topic. On the Outlining tab, in the Outline Tools group, click the Demote to Body Text button. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+N, which is also the keyboard shortcut for the Normal style. These steps change the text style to Body Text. That way, you can write text for a speech, some instructions in a list, or a chunk of dialogue from your novel and not have it appear as a topic or subtopic. How to print a Microsoft Word outline Printing an outline works just like printing any other document in Word but with one big difference: Only visible topics are printed. To control visible topics, use the Show Level menu. For example, to print the entire outline, choose All Levels from the Show Level menu and then print. To print only the first two levels of an outline, choose Level 2 from the Show Level drop-down list and then print. Word uses the heading styles when it prints the outline, although it does not indent topics.

Article / Updated 01-08-2019

Most document changes are made sequentially: You write something, save, and then someone else works on the document. If that chaos isn’t enough for you, Word allows you to invite people to edit a document while you’re working on it. This collaboration feature is called Sharing, probably because a better name wasn’t available or Microsoft was pressed for time. To make document sharing work, save your document to the cloud, or Internet storage. Specifically, the document must be saved to Microsoft’s OneDrive storage. How to share a Microsoft Word document After saving a document to OneDrive online storage, follow these steps to make the document available for collaboration: Click the Share button. The Share button is located above the Ribbon, near the upper right part of the document’s window. Upon success, the Share pane appears. Upon failure, you see a prompt asking you to save the document to OneDrive. Type an email address to invite a collaborator. If you use Outlook as your computer’s address book, click the Address Book icon to the right of the Invite People box to automatically add people. Choose whether the collaborators can edit. Choose Can View from the menu, and the people you invite can read the document. Choose Can Edit, and they can make changes. Type a message in the Include a Message box. Click the Share button. The invites are sent. Eventually, the recipients receive the email invite. To access the shared document, they click the link in the email address. Their web browser program opens and displays the document. If they want to edit the document, they click the link Edit in Browser. At that point, their web browser displays the document as it appears in Word, complete with a customized version of the Ribbon. Hack away. How to check updates in Microsoft Word To determine whether someone has edited your shared document, open the shared document and click the Share button found near the upper right corner of the document window. The Share pane lists all collaborators and whether they’re currently editing. Collaborators who are currently editing show avatar icons to the left of the Share icon atop the document window. If they’re actively editing, you see a color-coded insertion pointer appear in your document, showing where the collaborator is working. If collaborators have changed the document, save your copy to view updates: Click the Save icon on the Quick Access toolbar, or press Ctrl+S. Any changed content appears in the document with a colored overlay, similar to how revision marks are displayed. To check to see whether updates are pending, click the File tab, and on the Info screen, look for and click the button titled Document Updates Available.