Microsoft 365 Word For Dummies

Dan Gookin wrote the first-ever For Dummies book in 1991. The author of several bestsellers, Dan’s books have been translated into 32 languages and have more than 11 million copies in print. Dan is the bestselling author of all editions of Word For Dummies.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

How to Use This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 3

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: I’ll Take Word for $100 5

Chapter 1: Word Origins. 7

Word of the Day 7

Starting Word, the program 8

Starting Word, the online version 8

Opening a document to start Word 9

Your First Word 10

Working the Word Start screen 11

Beholding Word’s main screen 12

Navigating the ribbon 13

Showing and hiding the ribbon 14

Using Word on a touchscreen 15

Changing the document view 16

Viewing a document vertically or side-to-side 17

Making the document appear larger or smaller 17

Last Word 18

Quitting Word 18

Closing a document without quitting Word 19

Setting Word aside 20

Chapter 2: The Typing Chapter. 21

The New Hunt-and-Peck 21

Using the PC keyboard 22

Working the touch keyboard 23

Understanding the mouse pointer 24

Keyboard Do’s and Don’ts 25

Following the insertion pointer 25

Whacking the spacebar 26

Backing up and erasing 26

Pressing the Enter key 27

Table of Contents iii

Stuff That Happens While You Type 27

Using text predictions 27

Watching the status bar 28

Observing page breaks 28

Working collapsible headers 29

Dealing with spots and clutter in the text 30

Understanding colorful underlines 30

Part 2: Your Basic Word 33

Chapter 3: Moving Around a Document 35

Scroll the Document 35

Working the vertical scroll bar 35

Using the horizontal scroll bar 37

Scrolling with the mouse wheel 37

Move the Insertion Pointer 38

Commanding the insertion pointer 38

Moving the insertion pointer in small increments 38

Moving from start to end 39

Return to the Previous Edit 40

Go to Wherever with the Go To Command 41

Chapter 4: Text Editing 43

Remove Text You Don’t Want 43

Plucking out single characters 44

Deleting a word 44

Deleting more than a word 45

Paragraph Playtime 47

Setting hard and soft returns 47

Splitting a paragraph 48

Joining two paragraphs 49

Undo Mistakes with Undo Haste 49

Undoing the Undo command with Redo 50

Using the Repeat command 50

Chapter 5: Search for This, Replace It with That 51

Text Happily Found 51

Finding a tidbit o’ text 52

Scouring your document with Advanced Find 53

Finding stuff you can’t type 56

The Replace Part 58

Replacing text 58

Replacing formatting 59

Chapter 6: Blocks o’ Text 61

Meet Mr Block 61

Mark a Block of Text 63

Using the keyboard to select text 63

Marking a block with the mouse 64

Using the F8 key to mark a block 65

Blocking the whole dang-doodle document 66

Deselecting a block 66

Block Manipulation 67

Copying a block 68

Moving a block 68

Setting the pasted text format 69

Using the mouse to copy or move a block 70

Viewing the Clipboard 71

Chapter 7: Spell It Write 73

Check Your Spelling 73

Fixing a misspelled word 74

Dealing with incorrectly flagged words 75

AutoCorrect in Action 76

Undoing an AutoCorrect correction 76

Creating a new AutoCorrect entry 77

Adjusting AutoCorrect settings 78

Grammar Be Good 79

All-at-Once Document Proofing 80

Reviewing all those errors 80

Rechecking a document 81

Document Proofing Settings 82

Editing the custom dictionary 82

Disabling automatic proofing 83

Hiding all proofing errors in a document 83

Dealing with Word’s refusal to spell-check 84

Chapter 8: Documents New, Saved, and Opened 85

Some Terms to Get Out of the Way 85

Behold! A New Document 86

Save Your Stuff! 87

Saving a document for the first time 88

Dealing with document-save errors 90

Saving or updating a document 90

Saving automatically on OneDrive 91

Forgetting to save before you quit 91

Open a Document 92

Using the Open command 92

Opening one document inside another 94

Recover a Draft 95

Chapter 9: Publish Your Document 97

Your Document on Paper 97

Previewing before printing 98

Printing the entire dang doodle document 98

Printing a specific page 100

Printing a range of pages 101

Printing on both sides of the page 102

Printing odd- and even-numbered pages 102

Printing a block 103

Printing more than one copy of something 104

Choosing another printer 104

Canceling a print job 105

Electronically Publishing Your Document 105

Preparing a document for publishing 105

Making a PDF 106

Exporting your document 107

Part 3: Fun with Formatting 109

Chapter 10: Character Formatting 111

Text Formatting Techniques 111

Basic Text Formats 112

Setting a font 113

Applying character formats 114

Text Transcending Teensy to Titanic 115

Setting the text size 116

Nudging text size 116

More Colorful Text 117

Coloring the text 117

Shading the background 118

Change Text Case 119

Clear Character Formatting 119

Behold the Font Dialog Box 120

Chapter 11: Paragraph Formatting 123

Paragraph Formatting Rules and Regulations 124

Formatting a paragraph 124

Locating the paragraph formatting commands 125

Justification and Alignment 126

Line up on the left! 126

Everyone center! 126

Line up on the right! 127

Line up on both sides! 127

Make Room Before, After, or Inside Paragraphs 128

Setting the line spacing 128

Making space between paragraphs 129

Paragraph Indentation Madness 130

Indenting the first line of a paragraph 130

Making a hanging indent (an outdent) 131

Indenting a whole paragraph 132

Using the ruler to adjust indents 133

Chapter 12: Tab Formatting 135

Once Upon a Tab 135

Viewing the invisible tab characters 136

Seeing tab stops on the ruler 137

Using the ruler to set tab stops 138

Using the Tabs dialog box to set tabs 138

The Standard Left Tab Stop 140

Creating a basic tabbed list 140

Creating a 2-tab paragraph-thing 141

The Center Tab Stop 143

The Right Tab Stop 144

Making a right-stop, left-stop list 144

Building a 2-column right-stop list 145

The Decimal Tab 146

The Bar Tab 147

Fearless Leader Tabs 148

Tab Stop, Begone! 150

Chapter 13: Page Formatting 151

Describe That Page 151

Setting page size 152

Changing orientation (landscape or portrait) 152

Setting the page margins 153

Using the Page Setup dialog box 154

Page Numbering 156

Adding an automatic page number 156

Starting with a different page number 158

Numbering with Roman numerals 159

Removing page numbers 159

New Pages from Nowhere 160

Starting text on a new page 160

Inserting a blank page 161

Page Background Froufrou 161

Coloring pages 161

Printing colored pages 162

Adding a watermark 163

Chapter 14: Section Formatting 165

A Document Sliced into Sections 166

Reviewing section types 167

Creating a new section 167

Using sections 168

Removing a section break 169

That First Page 169

Adding a cover page 170

Inserting a cover page manually 170

Headers and Footers 171

Using a preset header or footer 171

Creating a custom header or footer 172

Working with multiple headers and footers 175

Removing a header or a footer 177

Chapter 15: Style Formatting 179

The Big Style Review 179

Locating styles in Word 180

Applying a style 182

Identifying the current style 182

Removing style formatting 183

Make Your Own Styles 183

Creating a style 184

Using the Create New Style from Formatting dialog box 185

Modifying a style 187

Assigning a shortcut key to a style 187

Deleting a style 188

Style Tips and Tricks 189

Changing the Normal style 189

Creating heading styles 190

Customizing the Style Gallery 191

Chapter 16: Template and Themes Formatting 193

Instant Documents with Templates 194

Using a template to start a new document 194

Changing a document’s attached template 196

Templates of Your Own 197

Building a template from an existing document 197

Modifying a template 198

The Theme of Things 199

Applying a document theme 200

Modifying or creating a theme 201

Chapter 17: Everything Drawer Formatting. 203

Weird and Fun Text Effects 203

Steal This Format! 205

Automatic Formatting 206

Enjoying automagical text 206

Formatting tricks for paragraphs 209

Undoing an AutoFormat 210

Center a Page, Top to Bottom 210

Part 4: Spruce Up a Dull Document 213

Chapter 18: They’re Called Borders 215

The Basics of Borders 216

Putting borders around a paragraph 217

Boxing multiple paragraphs 218

Removing borders 218

The Borders and Shading Dialog Box 218

Creating a fancy title 219

Boxing text 220

Applying a page border 221

Stick a Thick Line Between Paragraphs 222

Chapter 19: Able Tables 223

Set a Table in Your Document 223

Working with tables in Word 223

Creating a table 224

Converting a table to text 228

Deleting a table 228

Text in Tables 229

Typing text in a table 229

Selecting in a table 230

Aligning text in a cell 230

Table Modification 231

Adding or removing rows or columns 231

Adjusting row and column size 232

Merging cells 232

Splitting cells 233

Making the table pretty 233

Adding a table caption 234

Chapter 20: Columns of Text 235

All about Columns 235

Making two-column text 237

Building a trifold brochure 238

Giving up on columns 239

Column Tricks 239

Changing column formats 239

Placing a column break 240

Chapter 21: Lots of Lists 243

Lists with Bullets and Numbers 243

Making a bulleted list 244

Numbering a list 244

Creating a multilevel numbered list 245

Numbering lines on a page 246

Document Content Lists 247

Creating a table of contents 247

Building an index 248

Adding a list of figures 250

Footnotes and Endnotes 251

Chapter 22: Here Come the Graphics 253

Graphical Goobers in the Text 254

Copying and pasting an image 255

Plopping down a picture from a file 255

Slapping down a shape 256

Sticking things into a shape 257

Using WordArt 257

Image Layout 258

Wrapping text around an image 259

Floating an image 260

Keeping an image with a paragraph 260

Image Editing 260

Resizing an image 261

Cropping an image 261

Rotating an image 262

Changing an image’s appearance 263

Image Arrangement 263

Moving an image hither and thither 263

Aligning graphics 264

Shuffling images front or back 265

Grouping images 265

Chapter 23: Insert Tab Insanity 267

Characters Foreign and Funky 267

Nonbreaking spaces and hyphens 268

Typing characters such as Ü, Ç, and Ñ 268

Inserting special characters and symbols 269

Spice Up a Document with a Text Box 270

Fun with Fields 271

Understanding fields 271

Adding some useful fields 272

Updating a field 274

Changing a field 274

Viewing a field’s raw data 274

Deleting fields 274

The Date and Time 275

Adding the current date or time 275

Using the PrintDate field 276

Part 5: Famous Last Words 277

Chapter 24: Multiple Documents, Windows, and File Formats 279

Multiple Document Mania 279

Viewing multiple documents 280

Showing a single document in multiple windows 281

Using the old split-screen trick 282

Other Document Types 283

Opening a non-Word document 283

Updating an older Word document 285

Chapter 25: Word for Writers 287

Organize Your Thoughts 287

Entering Outline view 288

Typing topics in the outline 289

Rearranging topics 290

Demoting and promoting topics 291

Expanding and collapsing topics 292

Adding a text topic 293

Humongous Documents 295

Stitching together chapter documents 295

Splitting a document 296

Dan’s Writing Tips 297

Choosing the best word 297

Counting every word 298

Writing for writers 298

Chapter 26: Let’s Work This Out 299

Comments on Your Text 299

Adding a comment 299

Perusing comments 301

Dealing with a comment 301

Deleting comments 302

The Yellow Highlighter 302

Look What They’ve Done to My Text, Ma 303

Comparing two versions of a document 303

Tracking changes as they’re made 304

Viewing revision marks (and comments) 305

Reviewing changes 306

Printing revisions (and comments) 306

Remote Collaboration 307

Chapter 27: Mail Merge Mania 309

About Mail Merge 309

Understanding Word’s mail merge jargon 310

Reviewing the mail merge process 311

Using the Mail Merge Wizard 312

I. The Main Document 312

Creating a mail merge form letter 313

Creating mail merge email messages 313

Creating mail merge envelopes 314

II The Recipient List 315

Building a new recipient list 315

Using an already created recipient list 319

Grabbing a recipient list from Outlook 319

Editing a recipient list 320

III Fold In the Fields 320

IV Preview the Merged Documents 321

V Mail Merge, Ho! 322

Merging to a new set of documents 322

Merging to the printer 323

Merging to email 323

Chapter 28: Labels and Envelopes 325

Labels Everywhere 325

Printing sheets of identical labels 326

Printing an address list 327

Instant Envelope 330

Chapter 29: A More Custom Word 333

A Better Status Bar 333

The Quick Access Toolbar 335

Adding buttons to the Quick Access toolbar 336

Editing the Quick Access toolbar 336

Removing items from the Quick Access toolbar 338

Customize the Ribbon 338

Add More Features with Add-Ins 339

Chapter 30: Meet Your Copilot 341

Write Me Something 341

Finding your Copilot 342

Drafting with Copilot 342

Help from That AI Brain 343

Part 6: the Part of Tens 345

Chapter 31: Ten Cool Tricks 347

Side-to-Side Page Movement 347

Automatic Save with AutoRecover 349

Accelerate the Ribbon 349

Ancient Word Keyboard Shortcuts 350

Build Your Own Fractions 351

Electronic Bookmarks 351

Lock Your Document 352

The Drop Cap 353

Map Your Document 354

Sort Your Text 355

Chapter 32: Ten Bizarre Things 357

Equations 357

Video in Your Document 358

Hidden Text 358

The Developer Tab 359

Hyphenation 359

Document Properties 360

Document Version History 360

Collect-and-Paste 360

Click-and-Type 361

Translations 361

Chapter 33: Ten Automatic Features Worthy of Deactivation 363

Bye-Bye, Start Screen 364

Restore the Traditional Open and Save Dialog Boxes 364

Disable the Mini Toolbar 365

Select Text by Letter 365

Disable Click-and-Type 366

Set Paste Options 366

Disable AutoFormat Features (×4) 367

Index 369