Microsoft Word is a powerful word-processing program that
gives beginners and experienced computer users the ability
to create, edit, and store a vast array of documents. Through
this set of introductory tutorials you will learn how to
create documents, change the size, typeface and style of
text, easily manipulate text with cutting and pasting, adjust
page size and much more to get you started using this versatile
program. Study the tutorials in order, or skip directly
to the section you need. Keep in mind two things while following
these lessons. The first is that no tutorial can ever substitute
for first-hand experimentation. You will only learn a computer
program by using it yourself, not by simply reading the
instruction manual. The second thing to remember is not
to be afraid of making mistakes. In addition to mistakes
being an important part of learning, Microsoft Word has
many features designed to protect your hard work from accidents
caused by the computer, a power outage, and yes, even you!
Features like automatic file saving and a very useful “UNDO”
option allow you to recover from mistakes with ease.
When you first open Microsoft Word there will be a blank
screen with a menu across the top. This menu contains terms
like [FILE], [EDIT], [INSERT], etc. These menus contain
many functions for controlling your documents, not all of
which we need right now. We will look at the most common
functions in this set of tutorials.
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Although a blank
page automatically opens when you start the Word
program, you may want to create a new document to
take advantage of some of the advanced templates
Word offers. Templates are pre-constructed and formatted
pages that let you add your own text and images.
They save you time and effort by allowing you to
create complex documents with little effort. Individual
templates will not be explicitly covered in these
tutorials, but the exercises we do cover will help
you utilize templates in general.
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To open new documents, move the mouse cursor over [FILE]
on the menu bar. Click once with the left mouse button and
you will see a menu similar to the image above. Move your
mouse down slightly and [NEW] will become highlighted. Left-click
once and the new document window will appear. It looks like
the image below.
The headings [GENERAL], [LEGAL PLEADINGS], [LETTERS AND
FAXES], [MEMOS], etc are all groups of preformatted documents,
or templates, for you to use as you wish. In the image above,
the [LETTERS AND FAXES] group is selected by clicking once
on the heading. There are a wide variety of templates to
experiment with, but for now click on the [GENERAL] heading,
and then select the [BLANK DOCUMENT] icon from the box,
like the image below. Once the type of document you need
is highlighted, click on [OK] to begin.
Microsoft Word’s strongest features are in its ability
to quickly manipulate text. All text manipulation is done
first by selecting the specific text you want to affect,
and then selecting what you want that effect to be. Figures
1 and 2 demonstrate how to select a group of text for editing.
First you must type something. Then move the selector (circled
in red) to the beginning of the text and while holding down
the left mouse button, drag the selector across your text.
The text will be highlighted in black, shown in Fig. 2.
Keep in mind that you can do this for ANY amount of text
from as little as one word up to your entire document! This
allows you to affect specific parts of your typing so you
can, for instance, have different sizes of text in the same
sentence, different fonts or even a rainbow of colors.
Figure 1 |
Figure 2 |
Now that you have you text selected, lets see what you can
do to it. One of the more common functions is to change
the font size. Font size literally means the size of the
letters. In Fig. 3 you will notice our selected text as
well as a drop-down menu with many numbers. This is your
text size box. There are two ways to change the font size.
You can either highlight the number in the size box (using
the same method we used for selecting text) and type in
a new size, or you can click once on the small arrow to
the right of the number to open a drop-down menu. Drop down
menus are very common and appear when you click on any of
the words in your menu bar and any place you find a small
arrow pointing down. The menu below contains various font
sizes that you can select with your mouse by moving the
cursor over them and clicking once.
Figure 3 |
Using this method, you can increase or decrease the size
of your text. Remember that the larger the number, the larger
your text will appear.
Another common text-editing feature is changing the font.
Font is another term for the typeface, or the visual style
of the letters. Microsoft Word uses “Times New Roman”
as the default font so that every time you open a new document
you will be using this typeface. If you want to add extra
spice to your document and “Times New Roman”
is not what you want, don’t fear because this is easy
to change. Use the same technique for selecting a piece
of text by holding down the left mouse button and drag the
cursor over the text to highlight it. Once you have highlighted
the portion of text you want to change, move the cursor
up to the typeface box in your menu bar. Similar to the
size box, you can click once on the small arrow next to
the typeface box to open a drop-down menu similar to the
one in Fig. 4. Simply select the font you want to use by
highlighting it with the mouse cursor and clicking once.
Experiment with different fonts to find several you like.
Figure 4 |
| Another common set
of tools are the bold, italic, and underline features.
Select a word or group of text using the method described
above and, while the text is highlighted, click once
on these icons to activate them. Keep in mind that
you can use any combination of these features on the
same group of text. A word or phrase can be bold,
italic, and underlined at the same time. |
Figure 5 |
| The alignment functions
in Word allow you to format groups of text to fit
along any border, whether on the left side, right
side, or both. To activate it you must highlight a
group of text with the cursor and then click once
on the icon. In the figure at left you can see how
the small graphics on each icon represent its function.
Left alignment, also called left justification, is
normal for most letters and papers, but centered text
works best when creating a poster or advertisement.
Once again, experiment to find the best combination
for your particular document. |
Figure 6 |
Figure 7 |
One of the most useful
editing tools is cutting and pasting. This allows
you to move small or large pieces of text anywhere
in your document with just a few simple mouse clicks.
In Fig. 7 we have highlighted our text with the standard
method. Now right-click with the mouse cursor over
the highlighted text to open the menu seen below.
[CUT] is an option that will remove the selected text
from the current location and allow you to place it
somewhere else. [COPY] will allow you to place the
selected text somewhere else but it will not remove
it from the current location. |
Figure 8 |
Once you have selected
your text, decided whether you want to move it completely
or just make a copy to another location, use your
mouse to click once on the appropriate option. If
you cut the text, it will disappear form the screen.
If you copy it, the text will remain intact. Before
you paste your text you must find the blinking cursor.
Think of the blinking cursor as the position of the
typewriter head telling you where the next letter
will appear when you hit a key. To move the cursor
simply position the selector where you need the cursor
on the page and click the left mouse button once.
Move the selector away and you will see the blinking
cursor in the new position. Now that you have the
cursor in the correct position, you can paste your
text back into the document. Simply right-click to
open the menu in Fig. 8, select [PASTE] with the mouse
and left-click. You can paste as many times as you
want to create infinite copies of your text. |
This concludes the beginner tutorial for MS Word. |
