Microsoft Word is one of the most used programs by students, office workers and anyone who needs to work with documents. Writing a text with Word is very easy, but using it quickly, solving every formatting problem and "drawing" even the text in a professional way, to present and print the document well.
The important things to take care of in a Word document are the font sizes, bold, italics and the like and the objects inside, such as tables and images.
There are many hidden tricks and shortcuts in Word that make it easier to edit text so in this short guide, we see 10 things to learn to better write a Word document (Office 2007 and 2010 versions).
READ ALSO: Guide to styles, sections and paragraphs in Word
1) The selection of vertical text
Normally you can select a character, a word, a phrase or a paragraph with the mouse, always horizontally.
Sometimes it may be necessary to select text vertically, for example, to copy and paste a series of numbers.
To select the text vertically, hold down the ALT key, drag down with the mouse and release the ALT key before releasing the mouse (otherwise the search will open).
2) Default line spacing (space between two lines)
The default line spacing in Microsoft Word 2010 is 1.15 while it is 1 in Microsoft Word 2003. Microsoft has changed the line spacing to make the text more readable, but if you prefer the old style with line spacing 1, you can change the space between the lines by setting:
from the Home tab in the top menu, the default Normal style, press the right button and enter Edit.
In the window that appears, press Format, select Paragraph and, under the spacing, modify the line spacing.
Then click on OK and check the box on "in new documents based on this model" to always have this line spacing in the future.
3) Change the default path Save
By default, Microsoft Word saves each new file in the Documents folder. To change the folder where to save the files, click on the button at the top left and then on the Word Options button in the right corner of the window.
In the " save " section you can change both the path of automatic saving and the default saving of documents.
4) Change default font
The default font for new documents in MS Word 2010 is Calibri, excellent font for online viewing, not the best for printing.
Much better to use Times New Roman or Arial to print official documents to present at work or school.
Instead of changing fonts manually each time, it is better to change the default font by right clicking on the Normal Style button on the Home tab.
Go to Edit, click on Format, open the drop-down menu and select Font.
In the dialog, select the font to be used with all documents.
Click OK and then always select the item " in new documents based on this model ".
5) Move text to table
To move one or more rows inside a table up or down without having to change the formatting, you can use copy paste, but this is not the best way.
Using the ALT + SHIFT + UP or DOWN arrow keys instead, you can move an entire line up or down.
Before moving a row, select it with the mouse.
This method allows you to move portions of text without ruining the formatting.
READ ALSO: 12 special Word functions to always use when writing a document
6) Quickly change the line spacing (line spacing)
To change the line spacing between the different paragraphs quickly, you can use shortcut keys:
CTRL + 1 -> line spacing to 1
CTRL + 2 -> line spacing at 2
CTRL + 5 -> line spacing at 1.5
It is not necessary to select the paragraph, just place the cursor on the point that needs to be modified.
7) Quickly add borders or solid lines
To add a border, a divider or a solid line, you can use special characters on Word:
Press 3 times - (dash) and press Enter to draw a continuous underline;
Press _ (underscore) three times and press Enter to draw a more pronounced underline.
Press * (asterisk) three times and press Enter to draw a dashed underline.
Press = (equal to) three times and press Enter to draw a double underline.
In the Layout section there is instead the button to add page borders or borders to a paragraph.
8) Find formatted pieces
A text can have a terrible mix of different fonts and different sizes.
Fortunately, from the search, it is possible to find written text with a particular character and also bold or italicized text.
In Word 2010 Press CTRL + F to open the Find pane while in Word 2007 press CTRL - Shift - T.
In the Find What box, click Other and then select one of the options from the format menu.
To search, press on Find next .
For example, you can select a font to see which parts of text are written that way.
9) Copy a text formatted in a certain way and paste it into a new document .
When copying something from one document to another, you may want to keep the original formatting, or not.
You can set a special formatting for the pasted text by changing the font in the small window that appears by right clicking on an empty part of the sheet.
Much more simply, you can go to Word Options from the main menu at the top left, go to the advanced settings and change the options in the Cut, copy and paste section .
10) Copy format is the key to copy the formatting of a word onto another portion of text.
To do this first, you can use the key combination CTRL - Shift - C and then select the word and press CTRL - Shift - V.
11) Finally, remember that in Word you can quickly create a cover of the document from the Insert -> Frontispiece menu (It is not known who translated it like this).
By right-clicking on one of the predefined covers, you can change its properties and customize them.
In other articles, I remember reading:
- Key combinations for Word 2007 and 2010 and customized menu bar
- Use Microsoft Word professionally and quickly with 5 useful functions
