Microsoft Word

These notes are devised for Word 2003, although most of what is here is the same for
other versions of Word. One feature you should be careful of is that the menus
initially only display the main options; a double-arrow at the bottom of each menu can
be clicked to show further options. If you use any of these regularly, they will be
displayed automatically.

Opening and Closing Word

To start Word from the Program Manager, click on the Start button, then select
MSWord from the Program or other menu.

Menu bar Ruler Tool bars Document window

Status bar Scroll bar

Word opens with a blank Document Window, the area in the centre of the screen. At the
top of the screen are two tool bars. If you point the cursor at any of the buttons (without
clicking), their function appears in a small text box. At the top of the screen, above the
buttons, is the Menu Bar. To close Word, when you are finished, select Exit from the File
menu. Before closing, ensure that all your work is properly saved.

Creating a File

When you start Word, a blank document appears, and you can enter text right away.
The vertical bar | on the screen is called the Cursor - it shows the position where
anything you type will be input. You can use the cursor keys or the mouse to move the
cursor around. Notice how the pointer changes as you move the mouse around, from an
arrow (letting you point at things and select them with a mouse click) to an I-beam or text
pointer, when it is in the document window. You can use the I-beam pointer to quickly
place the text cursor in the position where you want to start typing by clicking the mouse
button. The I-beam looks a little different if it is outside the area where you have typed
text (but still within the margins).

If you make mistakes, you can delete them using the Backspace and Del keys. As you
enter text, Word automatically wraps it round onto the line below as it reaches the right
hand side of the screen. You should not use the Enter key to mark the end of a line on the
screen; only use Enter in this way to mark the end of a paragraph - press it twice if you
want a blank line between paragraphs.

Saving Text to a File

To save your text, choose Save from the File menu or click the toolbar Save button.
The first time you save a file the Save as dialog box appears. This enables you to
choose where to save your file.

a. Select the drive on which you want to save your file (a: for your floppy disc). Use
the Save in drop-down menu to find other drives and folders.

There is a default folder which

opens whenever you save for the
first time. This is My Documents,
which is on the C: drive of a home
PC but on the networked H: drive
on campus cluster PCs.

b. Type in a filename. Press Enter or click the dialog box’s Save button.

If you are working on a document, save it regularly in case of a problem such as a

power failure, or a human error such as accidentally deleting a big chunk. Every
minute or so is probably excessive - every twenty minutes is not often enough. Get
into the habit of saving your work every time you stop to think. You should also back
up your file regularly, so that you can revert to a previously saved version should you
mess something up.
Loading Text from a File

Choose Open from the File menu, or click on the picture of the Open folder. Select
the drive and folder where your file is located. Double-click on a folder in the list, to
display its contents. The default is to open in My Documents but you can choose
another folder. To change drives, you must click on the drop-down Look in menu.

Click on a file name to select it and then click the Open button. If you simply want to
create a new file from scratch, select New on the File menu. A dialog box will appear
offering a choice of templates; choose General and Blank Document.

Moving through Text

Once you have a document that takes up more than one screenful of text, you need
to be able to move through the document as easily as possible. Pressing the Home
key takes you to the beginning of the current line. The End key takes you to the end
of the current line. Pressing them in conjunction with the Ctrl key takes you to the
top of the document (Ctrl-Home), or the bottom of the document (Ctrl-End).

You can also scroll through your document with the mouse. On the right hand side
of the window is a scroll bar – a sliding vertical bar with arrows at the top and
bottom and a rectangular block somewhere between. The block shows you your
relative position in the document. If you click with the mouse on the down arrow,
you move down a line in your document. Click on the up-arrow to move towards
the beginning of your text.

To move faster, a screen at a time, click anywhere in the grey area beneath the block
marker to move down, anywhere above it to move up. If you click on the block marker
itself and hold the mouse button down, you can drag it to another position – release the
mouse button and you will find you have moved to that relative point in your document.
But remember to click with the mouse pointer in the text window, to place the text
cursor in the new position, otherwise it will be where you last left it! While dragging the
block, the status bar will tell you which page you are currently at.

Editing

You can do simple editing with the Backspace key, which deletes the character to the
left of the cursor, and the Del or Delete key, which deletes the character to the
right of the cursor.

However, you will also want to delete or move larger sections of text and to do this
you need to highlight the text you are interested in. You can use either the keyboard
or the mouse to highlight text. Pointing the mouse cursor on a word and clicking
twice rapidly will select just that word. To select a line of text, move the mouse to
the left edge, until the point changes from a cursor to an arrow, and click the left
button. Double-click to select the entire paragraph.
To highlight a larger selection of text, place the text cursor at your starting point, press and
hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse to the point at which you want your
selection to end before releasing the mouse button. Word will scroll the screen for you if
you move the mouse cursor to the top or bottom of the Document Window.

Sometimes the screen will scroll too quickly to catch what you want to select, in which
case you can select the first line with the mouse, then scroll down to the last line you wish
to select. Press shift and select that line with the mouse to highlight all the text
between, including these two lines. When arrow is displayed, press Ctrl and the left
button to select the entire document.
To clear highlighted text just click anywhere on the text once.
You can also use the keyboard to select or highlight: press and hold the
Shift key down and then move the cursor with the cursor keys to extend
the highlight. Press a cursor key without depressing the Shift key to clear
the highlight again.
Cursor Keys

Deleting, Copying and Moving Blocks of Text

Once you’ve highlighted a section of text you can remove it by pressing the Del key,
or by clicking the scissors button or by selecting Cut from the Edit menu; you can
also Copy it. The clipboard is an area of memory which holds recently Cut (or
Copied) text. Deleted text is not held in the clipboard – you cannot paste it
somewhere else – but you can recover it if you immediately press the Undo button.

You can use the Cut option to physically move sections of text around. By cutting
text to the clipboard, you can paste it anywhere in the file. Place the text cursor where
you want the text to appear, and select Paste from the Edit menu.

If you want to copy text, use Copy in the Edit menu. Copy will take a copy of the
highlighted text and place it on the clipboard. You can then Paste copies of the text
wherever you like in the document. You can also simply use the appropriate buttons
on the button bar as shortcuts.

The Office Clipboard can hold up to 24 items (this can be text,

clipart or any other object that can be displayed in Word. If you
copy a 25th item, the first item in the Office Clipboard is deleted.

To copy/paste separate items you must activate the Office

Clipboard (see illustration, right): do this by selecting Office
Clipboard on the Edit menu. Now, when you copy an item, an
icon for it will appear on the clipboard. Paste one item by
clicking its icon or paste all at once by clicking on the Paste All
icon. To clear the clipboard, click the Clear all button.

Keyboard short cuts also exist: Ctrl-X for Cut, Ctrl-C for Copy, and Ctrl-V for
Paste.
Inserting Text from another Document

If you want to insert text from another document, or a text file created using another
application, there are two ways of doing it:
a. Copy-and-Paste: copy the text you want, then switch to the document you want
to insert it into and paste. If you are copying from one Word document to another,
click on the filenames at the bottom of the Window menu to switch between
documents.
b. Insert File: use File... from the Insert menu to insert a whole file.

Formatting Text

Having selected (i.e. highlighted) some text, it may be that you want to emphasise it
in some way – embolden it or italicise it for example (avoid underlining in word-
processed documents). You can change the format of the selected text by using a series of
options found in the Format menu, or by using some of the short-cut buttons. The easiest
method is to use the buttons. The letters on the buttons indicate: B for Bold and I for
Italics. The buttons act as toggles – press the button once and the text changes to that
style, press it again and the text turns back to normal again. You can also change text style
easily from the keyboard: highlight what you want to change and use Ctrl-B for Bold and
Ctrl-I for Italics. As with the buttons, the key combinations are toggles.

Formatting paragraphs can be as simple. Word normally assumes that you will use
left-aligned text (i.e. the left hand edge of the text falls on a straight line, the right
hand edge does not), but you may prefer text justified (both left and right edges
aligned, with spaces added into the text to push it to the edge), or right-aligned. To
do this, select the paragraph(s) you wish to change and click on one of the buttons in
the alignment group in the button bar. The pictures on the buttons show what results
can be expected.

This is Left-aligned This is Centred This is Right-aligned

The text in the following paragraph is Fully justified

For more control over paragraph formatting, use the Paragraph option on the Format
menu. Selecting this option produces the Paragraph dialog box. You will see that
there are a series of Alignment options, which you select by clicking on the box and
selecting the one you want. You can also change the indentation (and have a different
indentation for the first line) by entering measurements in the relevant Indentation
box. Spacing can be used to make your text double-spaced by specifying double in
the Line Spacing box. The example box will show what the changes you are making
look like, so feel free to experiment with the options.
Mistakes can be ‘undone’ by clicking the Undo button, the one with the arrow
pointing backwards, or by clicking on Undo from the Edit menu.
You can also set some kinds of alignment by using the ruler. This is seen at the top of
the document window, just below the toolbars. If you cannot see the ruler, select
Ruler from the View menu.

You can draw the indent markers along the ruler to set where the text will begin or
end. The upper marker sets the first line indent and the lower marker sets the indent
for the rest of the paragraph. The marker on the right sets the end of line indentation.
Exact numeric settings can be made, by selecting Paragraph from the Format menu.

Using Tabs. The Tab key moves the cursor to the position of the next tab stop. Tab
stops are usually set at half-inch intervals, but you can reset them yourself. The
simplest way to set tabs is to click on the ruler bar at the required ruler positions.

Ruler bar with Tab settings (L)

A small “L” shaped marker will signify the tab position and
you can drag this left or right with the mouse pointer to place
it more accurately. To clear a tab marker, double click on it
and a dialog box will appear. Click the Clear button to
remove that particular tab. If you wish to remove all the tabs
you have placed, double click on one of them and then click
on the Clear All button.

You can also open this dialog box using Tabs… from the
Format menu. You can use this to specify a precise
measurement for the tabs, but generally the method described
above will suffice for most of your needs.

Printing

To print your document to the printer, use the Print

option in the File menu. You can choose to print
all, of your document, or only selected pages. Print
Preview in the File menu lets you see what your
document will look like before you decide to print
it.

Take care if you work on a document at home, as

the page setup may be different from that on the
university network. Make sure that the paper size
is set to A4 and that the orientation is set to
Portrait for standard documents such as essays.
To do this select File then Page Setup; in the
dialog box select the Margins tab and ensure that
the settings are correct. You can of course set the
margins here also.
You can also print by clicking the Print button. This will print your whole
document immediately however and will not give you the option of selecting a set up
or page numbers to be printed.

Text Tools

You can use Find or Replace in the Edit

menu to search for a particular word or
phrase in the text and replace it with
another if you wish. Using the dialog box,
type the word or set of characters you
want to search for and, if you are
replacing, what you want to replace it
with, in the boxes provided. Both options open essentially the same dialog box, and
you can switch from one to the other by clicking the appropriate tab. The Go To
option is also available – enter a page number and click next and you will be taken to
that page.

Spell Checking: after selecting the text you

want to check (if you do not select any text, it
will check the whole document), choose
Spelling and Grammar from the Tools menu.
The checker will suggest grammar corrections
and highlight possible spelling mistakes. You
can choose to change to a suggested word or
ignore it. It also permits you to add a new word
to the dictionary, so that the spellchecker
doesn’t keep bothering you about it.

It is possible to correct spelling as you type. Choose Options from the Tools menu,
then choose the Spelling and Grammar tab and click on the Check spelling as you
type checkbox. Word will then underline misspelt words in red and possible
grammatical errors in green.

Thesaurus: sometimes it is difficult to think of the exact word to

use. Word has a built in thesaurus, which can help you. Enter a
word, which is close in meaning to the word you are trying to think of
then choose Thesaurus... from Language under the Tools menu. A
list of alternative words will be offered.

If none of them seems correct, select one and

press the down-arrow and choose Look Up to see
different alternatives.

Word Count: to count the words in a document, select Word

Count... from the Tools menu. This will display statistical
information about the document. This data is also accessible by
opening Properties from the File menu, then clicking on the
Statistics button. More details about the file are available here.
Headers and Footers

It is often very useful to put certain pieces of information, such as your name, the date
and page numbers on every page of a document. If you select Header and Footer in
the View menu, you will see a new screen layout, just like the one you are typing into,
except that the main text will be greyed out and areas will be outlined at the top and
bottom of the page for you to type in a header or a footer. A floating menu bar will
appear in mid-screen which contains special symbols.
inserts page numbers switches between header and footer

inserts current date inserts current time.

There are also options for inserting the number of pages and formatting page
numbers.

Inserting Symbols

You may need to make use of symbols, which do not normally appear on the keyboard:
for instance, accents, Greek characters, or less well-used mathematical signs. You can
insert these into your text, using Symbol... from the Insert menu. You can choose the
font you want to use, then the symbol you want. Short-cuts can be set up for those
symbols (perhaps ç or €) which you use often. Use the Symbol font for scientific symbols
including Greek characters and pictorial symbols in Monotype Sorts or Wingdings for
attention markers.

Inserting Non-text Objects

Word offers the facility to insert non-text objects into a document. The first of these
we will look at will be Equation Editor objects. This demonstrates most of the
features you will come across when working with non-text objects. In the following
sections we will look at other illustrative objects you can add to documents.

To access Equation Editor choose Object... from the Insert menu and select Microsoft
Equation 3.0. This opens a floating menu bar with buttons offering symbols and equation
structures. A new menu, with the option Style, will appear on the main menu bar. Using
these new options, and the numbers and other characters available from the keyboard,
you can write an equation in the “object box” area which will appear on screen
wherever you placed your cursor. To get back to your document when you have
finished with Equation Editor, click on the close button (the “X” box in top right
hand corner of the equation menu bar). The “object box” with the equation in it may
be rather small, but while the box outline is highlighted you can resize with the
mouse, just as if it was another window.
Clip Art

Clip Art is another example of an object. It is found as a

collection of images available from the network or on a
hard disc or CD, and is a simple way of inserting
illustrations into your document. You can find clipart by
selecting Picture... from the Insert menu and then
choosing Clip Art.

You can check for clipart on a subject by choosing to

Search in a particular collection (e.g. Food, Medicine,
etc.). Or you can type in a search word in the Search for
box and then click the Go button. Your search results are
displayed as thumbnail images of the clipart available.

Click on one of these to display miniature images of the clipart

available under each category. When you select an image, a
down-arrow bar appears beside it: click on this to display a
menu; you then click on the first option (Insert) to insert the
clipart into your document. Once inserted you can move and
resize it or edit in other ways.

Text Wrapping

Applying Text Wrapping to an image allows you to move it around the page by
dragging with the mouse, and wherever you leave it, text will flow (or wrap) round it.
(You will have seen how this looks with the many of the images shown in this
document). You may find that the default setting for wrapping is not what you
require. In this case, select the picture by clicking on it – a border will appear around
it – and the Picture toolbar will appear.

Amongst the various options (e.g. colour, contrast, brightness)

there is a small square icon with an outline of a dog in it.
Clicking on this displays a number of text wrapping options.
Click on the one you wish to apply. Square, for instance
wraps the text all the way round the image.

If you require more options, after selecting the image choose

Picture (or Object) from the Format menu. Selecting the
Layout tab and gives you same options but if you click the
Advanced button more are available. These include selecting
the sides text will wrap around and the distance text will be
kept from an image
Drawing Tools

Word offers a range of drawing tools to prepare diagrams and forms and to put
boxes round text. Click on the Drawing Tools button – it shows a cylinder,
cube and WordArt symbol (A) - and you get a new toolbar at the bottom of the
window.
Drawing Tools button

Drawing in a Word document

The new toolbar displays a series of buttons which give you basic graphic shapes, colours
for line and fill, and other drawing features, including Textbox which allows you to draw
a box into which text can be inserted. You can draw directly onto your screen using your
mouse; to edit a drawing later, click on the Drawing Tools button and then click to select
the drawing you wish to edit.

The Draw toolbar options are (from left to right): Draw menu (Order and Change
Autoshape), Select Objects, Auto Shapes, Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Ellipse, Textbox,
WordArt, Free Rotate, ClipArt, Insert Picture, Fill Colour, Line Colour, Font
Colour, Line Style, Dash Style, Arrow Style, Shadow, 3-D.

A useful guide to using the Draw tools can be found at:

http://www.ioe.ac.uk/ISWebsiteDocs/Guides/Computer/XP2003/DrawingToolsinWord2003.pdf
Tables in Word

Word allows you to create tables of text or data very

easily. Position the cursor where you want the table to be
and select Insert Table from the Table menu. A dialog
box will ask you how big you want the table. When you
click OK the blank table will be inserted in your text.
Alternatively, you can select Draw Table from the same
menu and draw your table using the mouse.

The final way to create a table is to use the Insert

Table button on the Word toolbar. This does not call up
the Insert Table dialog window which results in from using the Table → Insert
menu. Instead it displays a window of cells, representing the cells of a table. By
dragging across these with the mouse you can define your table size.
As you drag, the cells window expands to allow you to define a
larger table.

Once the table is inserted, you can use the arrow keys to move
around it and insert data. Consider carefully beforehand what the
table will contain, so you can set it up properly at the start and avoid
having to make changes. When the cursor is anywhere within a
table, the cell divisions will be shown on the ruler bar, with small grey “blocks”
marking the divisions.

Ruler bar with Table cell settings.

These “blocks” can be moved using the mouse pointer to change the width of the
columns in the table. The depth of a cell will automatically expand as you type to
allow the text/data entered to fit inside it.
When you select a table it displays a small “handle” icon at each
corner. You can drag from the top corner icon to move the table
to another position on the page. Dragging from the bottom right
resizes the table.

To format the table, drag over it with the mouse then select Borders and Shading…
from the Format menu. You can also access the same options from the Tables and
Borders toolbar (This appears when you click the
Tables and Borders button). As well as allowing
you to create a table, this toolbar allows you to set
line (border) styles, line weights (how thick a line
will be), line colour, and where borders will appear in the table. (All these options are
on the top row of the toolbar).

You can choose to have a border round every element of every cell in every row and
column or you can have only certain parts of your table with full borders while others
have borders only in one area. It is also possible to use pre-set Borders and Shading
formatting by clicking on the Autoformat button when you select Insert Table from
the Table menu. You will be given a preview of table styles, which you can select
from.

Different fonts and alignment can be set for

individual cells or selections of cells. Fonts can be
set by selecting the table data and using the normal
Format
Font menu. Other formatting can be set
by selecting Table Properties from the Table
menu. This allows you to adjust such things as text
alignment within table cells, cell margins, row
height, etc.

Cell margins are useful - click the Options button -

as they allow you to force a little space between the
cells, so that text or other data in the columns and
rows do not run into each other.

If you remove gridlines from a table, they will still be displayed on screen, even
though they will not be printed out. You can remove them from screen view also, by
choosing Hide Gridlines from the Table menu.

Borders and Shading

The addition of a border, including

areas of shading, to a section of text
can be a very effective way of making
important text stand out. Examples of
this could be a heading or a list of key
points that need to be clearly
distinguished from the surrounding
text.

It is best to add text first and then the

border and/or shading, as this allows
you to see what area will be included in the border/shaded area. To add a border,
select the area of text that is to have the border round it, then choose the Borders
and Shading option from the Format menu. If no area is selected the border or
shading will be applied to the paragraph the cursor is currently placed within.

To add a border, select the Borders tab then click on one of the box icons. Next,
choose the style of line that the box will consist of. You must also select whether the
border will appear around each line of the text or whether it will be a single border
around the whole paragraph. Do this by selecting the option
you want from the Apply to menu in the bottom-right corner.

Click OK to close the dialog box and the border will appear
around the text. To remove a border, select the area of text within the border and
open the Borders and Shading dialog box. Click None, then OK, to remove the
border.
A border can be added which surrounds every page on a document, or a specified part
of a document. Click on the Page Border tab and choose your border; then, from the
Apply to menu in the bottom right hand corner of the window, select what parts of
the document the border will appear in.

To add shading to an area of text, open the Borders and Shading dialog box. Select
the Shading tab to see the shading options. From the menu select the degree of
shading you wish; you can even change the background colour. Note that if you
choose heavy shading it will probably be necessary to change the font colour (Format

Font) so that the text will remain visible. Shading can be effective by itself and it
can also be combined with a border to produce various effects.

Bullets and numbering

The simplest way to create a bulleted list is to click on the bullet button on the
toolbar. This will insert a bullet and the cursor will be indented. You can add a line
or paragraph of text here and, when you press return, the bullet will automatically be
repeated on the following line. When you have completed the bulleted list, press
return twice and the normal text formatting will reappear.

A numbered list can be created in the much same way, by clicking the numbering
button on the toolbar.

It is possible to modify the list so that, for

instance, different bullet or numbering styles
can be used and the list can be set with
different indentation and spacing. To do
this, use the Bullets and Numbering option
from the Format menu. There is an
immediate choice of bullet styles, which can
be selected by clicking with the mouse.

More choices are available by clicking the

Customise button, which opens a dialog box
that allows you to alter the size and colour
of the bullet and the text indentation. By
clicking the Bullet button in this, the Symbol dialog box is opened and you can select
a new bullet from this, or from any other available font. Word 2000 offers the option
of a Picture bullet. You can choose from a selection of bullet-sized images by
clicking on the Bullet button.

Clicking the Numbering tab at the top of the Bullets and Numbering dialog box
allows you to select different numbering styles. You can select a different numbering
style from a drop down menu, and by clicking on the Font button, change the font of
the numbering system. You can mix different bullet and numbering styles together in
an Outline numbered list using the menu, which appears when you click the
appropriate tab. This should not be attempted until you have fully mastered the
normal bullet and numbering options.
Footnotes

To insert a footnote in a document, place the cursor at the

end of the word or sentence you wish to make a reference to
and then select Insert
Reference
Footnote. In the
dialog box which opens, you can choose Footnotes or
Endnotes, and which numbering format you prefer.

Footnotes are always automatically updated so that they will

almost always begin on the same page as their reference in
the text regardless of any later editing such as cutting and
pasting. To delete a footnote, select its reference number
and press the Delete key.

Getting Help

Word has a comprehensive built-in Help system. To

get into the Help system, select Help from the menu
bar. Use the Search for text box: simply type in the
term/terms which best describes the topic you wish
information on. The Help window will display
matches to your term/s, in the form of links to the actual
information.

Click on the best match to see the information

displayed in a larger, side window. This may contain
more links to more detailed or further, related
information. When you’ve finished, click on the Close
button (the “X” box in the top right hand corner) to
return to close the Help window.

Closing Word

To leave Word, select Exit on the File menu. If you have not saved your work, Word
will ask you if you want it saved before leaving the program. The Close option on
the File menu will simply close the current document, but leave you in Word.

Using Word Sensibly

Word is a powerful word-processing package with a great many features. However,

to produce a good document, it is not enough just to have a powerful word processor.
You also need to have something to say, since advanced word-processor features will
not disguise rubbish. And you need to develop a feel for how you wish your work to
look on the page. Here are some final suggestions:

Do take time to check spelling and grammar. This will catch most of your
typing errors too. Remember to proof read as well: some mistakes will produce a
proper word, but not the one you wanted.

Leave enough white space to help the reader – otherwise your text will be
cluttered and difficult to read. You may like a blank line between each paragraph,
for example.

Use the structure of the layout to reflect your content. Use headings where
they are really needed, and don’t overdo them. With too many headings the
structure begins to disappear.

Keep the layout simple in terms of special effects. Don’t use lots of different
layouts and fonts: three on a page is quite enough.

Be consistent in your use of different effects across the document.

Use punctuation properly. There should be no space in front of a punctuation
mark. Normally a full stop is followed by two spaces and other punctuation
marks by one.

Use a footer or header to identify the document. Some people like to use the
filename, others the title.

A cover page is often a good way to inform people clearly about your document. Put
on it your name and matriculation number, the title of the document, and other useful
information. A list of headings or abstracts can also be added.