10 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Microsoft Word Skills

Improve your Microsoft Word skills with these great tips!

 

Thanks to the rapid advancement if technology, most students are required to use Microsoft Word to work on their assignments and school projects. Microsoft Word has become a standard in most learning institutions across the world.

For a student to perform well in school, he or she needs to know how to use Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word is packed with a wide variety of features that will make your life at school easier. And when your life at school becomes easier, you’ll become more efficient and productive. This is the ultimate goal of any software out there?

There are different versions of Microsoft Word. It’s also available for both Mac and PC. Here are ten tips and tricks for you to become a master of Microsoft Word. Let’s get started!

1. Format the paragraph
You will be surprised by the number of ways that you can use to format your paragraphs. You can the first sentence of every other line except the first one. The paragraph mark is also a fairly powerful tool.

It contains information on how each paragraph has been formatted. And this will make your life easier. If you’ve copied an entire paragraph with the mark, you’ll also end up copying the format. If you fail to copy the mark together with your paragraph, you’ll paste without formatting.

2. Know all the symbols
When you type your document and hit the enter button, you don’t see a lot except the characters that you’ve typed. This doesn’t mean that that’s all you’ve got in your document. There are several characters and symbols all over the document that you are not aware of.

If you want to see what you’ve got, go to File, click on Options then to Display and select the option ‘Always Show These Formatting Marks on Screen. You can also set the Draft view by activating the Draft Mode.

3. Master sections
Breaks in Microsoft Word will help you better organize your document. You can do this by using sections. The breaks menu can be accessed on the Page Layout menu. You should keep in mind that Microsoft Office doesn’t see pages the way you and I see them.

They see them in terms of sections. By setting your document in sections, you can format every section independently and have more control than you’d normally have if everything were in a single section.

4. Zoom in and out
You can zoom in your Word document to avoid eye strain or out to see your document in its entirety. Knowing what works for you will greatly improve your typing and reading experience. To zoom in or out, you can use the slider located on the bottom right side of your document.

Microsoft Word

5. Prepare your document
It’s always best to get an idea of your formatting before you start working on your assignments or school projects. This way, you’ll get the opportunity to format your paragraphs, headers, and styles to name a few before putting your document together.

Doing so will allow you to make necessary adjustments to your document to ensure that everything fits properly. There’s nothing more aggravating than copy-pasting a few sentences or paragraphs and have the format all wrong.

6. ‘Tell Me What to Do’ feature
If you are trying to find a feature or function on Word but you can’t remember the menu or shortcut, click the ‘tell me what to do’ shortcut located at the top of your document on the toolbar ribbon.

Type in the action you’d like to be performed and you’ll get answers related to what you want to do. For instance, typing ‘create a table’ will give you several options associated with creating a table within your document. This feature is not normally used by most students. However, it is extremely useful.

7. Delete words with one press
Do you need to delete a couple of sentences or paragraphs? Instead of holding the backspace bar down for a couple of seconds, you can hold CTRL while pressing the backspace bar.

8. Lookup Words
If you are editing your document but you need context, consider using the Smart Lookup tool. All you have to do is highlight a word, right-click, and click the Smart Lookup option. When you do this, you’ll open a small panel that contains information related to the word. This saves you the time of moving to your browser and searching the word.

9. Hide the ribbon interface
For students who don’t know, the ribbon interface is the toolbar that runs along the top of your document. Some people enjoy having it there while others find it distracting. Fortunately, there is an easy way to get rid of this ribbon. After opening your Word document, click CTRL + F1, and the ribbon will disappear. To make reappear, repeat the process

10. Configure the paste options
Believe it or not, you can control how Word deals with the words that you paste. This can be done by clicking the Office button which is located at the top left side on the Word Options then to Advanced. From there, you’ll be able to review your Cut, Copy, and Paste options and configure them accordingly. This will help you do things like disabling hyperlinking when you paste and several other formatting options to make your school life easier.

Conclusion
Did you know most of the features that we’ve discussed in this article? If not, which ones are going to start using to make your school life easier? Feel free to share your views and other Microsoft tips to help other students get good grades. Remember, when you help others become successful, you ‘ll also be more successful. School life is not easy at all. However, using these ten tips and tricks will improve your experience.

Michael Gorman is a highly skilled essay writer and proofreader from the UK who currently works at paper service and paper writers. Being interested in everyday development, he writes various blog posts and discovers new aspects of human existence every day.

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