Microsoft Office 2016 At Work For Dummies (2016)

Chapter 2

Creating a Word Document

In This Chapter

Starting a new Word document

Selecting and formatting text

Applying themes and style sets

Checking spelling and grammar

Emailing a document to others

Sharing a document in other formats

Printing your work

Microsoft Word is the most popular of the Office applications because nearly everyone needs to create text documents of one type or another. With Word, you can create everything from fax cover sheets to school research papers to family holiday letters.

In this chapter, I explain how to create, edit, format, and share simple documents. By the end of this chapter, you’ll have a good grasp of the entire process of document creation, from start to finish, including how to share your work with others via print or email. Later chapters build on this knowledge, adding in the fancier aspects such as using styles, graphics, and multiple sections.

The type of formatting covered in this chapter is commonly known as character formatting (formatting that can be applied to individual characters). Character formatting includes fonts, font sizes, text attributes (such as italics), character spacing (spacing between letters), and text color. You can apply each type of character formatting individually, or you can use style sets or themes to apply multiple types of formatting at once.

Start a new document as Word starts

When you start Word, a Start screen appears, as in Figure 2-1. From here you can:

Click one of the shortcuts to recently used documents to reopen one.

Click Blank Document to create a new blank document. You can also press Esc to do this.

Click one of the template thumbnails to start a new document with that template.

Click in the Search for online templates box, type a keyword, and press Enter to look for more templates, as you learned to do in Chapter 1.

Figure 2-1: From Word’s Start screen, click Blank Document.

The Start screen shown in Figure 2-1 appears only when Word starts up; you can’t get back to it without exiting Word and restarting. However, you can access all its features in other locations in Word at any time. You can choose File ⇒ New to start a new document (covered inChapter 1), or press Ctrl+N to start a new blank document based on the default settings. Or, to access the list of recently used documents, choose File ⇒ Open.

Even when you start a blank document, you’re still (technically) using a template — a template called Normal. The Normal template specifies certain default settings for a new blank document, such as the default fonts (Calibri for body text and Cambria for headings), default font sizes (11 point for body text), and margins (1 inch on all sides).

If you stick with the default values for the Normal template’s definition, the Normal template doesn’t exist as a separate file. It’s built into Word itself. You won’t find it if you search your hard drive for it. However, if you make a change to one or more of the Normal template’s settings, Word saves them to a file called Normal.dotm. If Word at any point can’t find Normal.dotm, it reverts to its internally stored copy and goes back to the default values. That’s useful to know because if you ever accidentally redefine the Normal template so that it produces documents with unwanted settings, or if it ever gets corrupted, all you have to do is find and delete Normal.dotm from your hard drive, and you go back to a fresh-from-the-factory version of the default settings for new, blank documents. The template is stored in C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates, where user is the signed-in username.

Select text

When you apply formatting, it affects whatever is selected. Selecting blocks of text before you issue an editing or formatting command allows you to act on the entire block at once. For example, you can select multiple paragraphs before choosing a certain text font, size, or color.

Here are some mouse methods of selecting text:

Drag across the text with the mouse (with the left mouse button pressed) to select any amount of text.

Double-click a word to select it or triple-click within a paragraph to select the entire paragraph.

Click to the left of a line to select that line; drag upward or downward from there to select additional lines.

Figure 2-2: Select text by dragging across it.

Figure 2-3: Double-click a word to select it.

Figure 2-4: Click to the left of a line to select it.

Here are some keyboard methods of selecting text:

· Press Ctrl+A to select the entire document.

· Move the insertion point to the beginning of the text and then hold down the Shift key while you press the arrow keys to extend the selection.

· Press the F8 key to turn on Extend mode, and then use the arrow keys to extend the selection.

Choose between manual and style-based text formatting

In the next several sections, you will learn various ways of applying manual formatting to text, such as changing the font, size, color, and effects. But are you sure that’s what you really want to do? Give me a moment of your time to convince you that style-based formatting should be the norm, and manual formatting should be done only on an occasional basis.

Word works best when you allow it to use its Styles feature to consistently format text based on the style applied to it. Chapter 3 covers styles in detail, but here’s a quick preview. A style is a named collection of formatting settings. The default style is called Normal, and in new blank documents it uses a font called Calibri. If you wanted to change the font used in your document, you could do it in one of these ways:

· Select all the text and then manually apply a different font choice.

· Redefine Normal style to use a different font, which you can do in any of these ways:

· Choose a different style set.

· Change the definition of the Normal style to use a different font.

· Apply a different theme that defines Normal style differently.

· Apply a different set of theme fonts that define Normal style differently.

It might seem like you get the same result any way you go. However, as you start using some other Word features that work using styles, you will realize that they aren’t really the same at all.

Manual formatting overrides any formatting that comes from the style, so if you apply a font manually to a paragraph, that formatting will not change when you redefine the paragraph’s style in a way that would otherwise change it. Therefore, if you try to do style-based formatting later with a document that you’ve manually formatted, you may find that your style-based formatting is not working as planned, perhaps in unexpected and frustrating ways.

Does that mean you should never use manual formatting? No. Manual formatting can be very useful sometimes. For example, you might want to emphasize a particular word or phrase by making it bold, italic, or a different color. And, if you are creating a very short memo or letter and you’re in a hurry, you might find that manual formatting is right for the situation.

However, if you are creating a multipage document that is going to hang around for a while, take a look at what style-based formatting has to offer. Style-based formatting features are covered in the following places in this book:

· How to apply a different theme (Chapter 2)

· How to change the style set (Chapter 2)

· How to apply styles (Chapter 3)

· How to modify styles (Chapter 3)

· How to create new styles (Chapter 3)

Remove manually applied formatting

If you apply manual formatting to some text and then later decide that you would rather allow the formatting to be determined by the style, you can easily remove it. Just follow these steps:

1. Select the text to affect.

Choose Home ⇒ Clear All Formatting. You can also press Ctrl+spacebar.

Figure 2-5: Remove manually applied formatting.

Change the text font

The text in the document appears using a certain style of lettering, also called a font or a typeface. Office comes with dozens of typefaces, so you’re sure to find one that meets the needs of whatever project you create. To change a font, follow these steps:

Select the text to affect. See the previous section to learn some ways of selecting text.

On the Home tab, click the down arrow to the right of the Font box. The Font list opens.

You can point at a font to see the selected text previewed in it before clicking to make your selection in step 3.

Click the desired font.

Figure 2-6: Choose a font from the Fonts list on the Home tab.

Notice the Theme Fonts section in Figure 2-6 contains a (Headings) font and a (Body) font. These are the fonts that the document currently defines as the default heading and body fonts, respectively, based on the theme or style set in use. If you apply fonts from the Theme Fonts section, you aren’t really applying the listed fonts manually; you are applying the placeholder. If the style definitions change, any text you have formatted using the choices in the Theme Fonts section will also change.

Change the text size

Each font is available in a wide variety of sizes. The sizes are measured in points, with each point being of an inch on a printout. (The size it appears onscreen depends on the display zoom. You learned about zoom in Chapter 1.) Text sizes vary from very small (6 points) to very large (100 points or more). An average document uses body text that’s between 10 and 12 points and headings between 12 and 18 points. To change the text size, follow these steps:

Select the text to affect.

On the Home tab, click the down arrow to the right of the Size box. The Size list opens.

Click the desired size.

Here are a few points to remember about changing text size:

Instead of steps 2 and 3, you can alternatively click in the Size box and type a number directly. This is useful if you want a size that’s not on the list. Word accepts decimal points in font sizes, so you can have 10.5 point text, for example.

Clicking Increase Font Size increases the font size by one setting from the Size list. Depending on the size, that might be more than 1 point. For example, notice that the list jumps from 36 straight to 48.

Clicking Decrease Font Size button decreases the font size by one setting from the Size list.

Figure 2-7: Choose a font size from the Size list.

Select colors from a palette

When selecting a color in Word or any other Office application (for text, borders, shapes, and so on), it’s important that you understand how Office applications handle color. Take a moment to review this information, as you’ll need it many times in the rest of this book.

Every document, workbook, or presentation has a theme. Even plain blank ones have a theme (the default theme). One of the theme’s duties is to define a set of color placeholders.

When you are choosing the color for an object, if you choose a color from one of these placeholders, that color choice is dependent upon the theme. If a different theme is applied that defines the colors differently, the object changes color.

As an alternative, Word also offers a set of colors it calls Standard colors, which are fixed choices no matter what theme is applied.

When you make a color choice, you work with a palette like the one shown in Figure 2-8. Here are a few things to note about selecting colors:

Click Automatic to return the selection to the default. On a white or light-colored background, Automatic is black; on a dark background, it is white.

Click one of the theme colors, or a variant of one, to select a color that may change if the theme changes.

Click a color from Standard Colors to choose a fixed color that will not change.

Click More Colors to choose from a wider variety of standard colors.

If you choose More Colors, the Colors dialog box opens. This dialog box has two tabs: Standard and Custom.

The Standard tab contains swatches of common colors. Click the one you want.

The Custom tab contains a color grid. Click anywhere on the grid to select a color.

The chosen color appears here.

Drag this slider up or down to change the color’s lightness.

If you want a specific color that has a numeric value in a particular color model, select the color model here, and then enter the numeric values.

Figure 2-8: Select an appropriate color from the palette

Figure 2-9: The Standard tab of the Color dialog box.

Figure 2-10: The Custom tab of the Color dialog box.

Change text color

You can choose a specific color for selected text to draw attention to it, or to dress up a document to make it more attractive. You can either apply color manually (covered here), or redefine the style to use a different font color (covered in Chapter 3).

To manually change the text color, follow these steps.

Select the text to affect.

On the Home tab, click the down arrow to the right of the Font Color button. A palette appears.

To apply the color already shown on the face of the Font Color button, click the button face. Opening the palette is necessary only if you want a different color.

Click the desired color. See “Select colors from a palette” earlier in this chapter for guidance.

Figure 2-11: Choose a font color.

Apply text effects

Word supports two kinds of text effects. The basic ones, such as bold, italic, and underline, are supported by just about any word processing program you might work with. Stick to these if you are going to be sharing the document with others who might not have a recent version of Word. The more advanced set, such as glow and outline, work only in Word 2007 and later. Figures 2-12 and 2-13 show the effects available of each kind.

Figure 2-12: Basic effects, which work in almost any document format.

Figure 2-13: Advanced effects, which may not translate well into other document formats.

Certain basic effects are available on the Home tab, in the Font group. To apply one of these, select the text and click its button. Figure 2-14 points out the available effects:

Bold

Italic

Underline

Strikethrough

Subscript

Superscript

Figure 2-14: Some basic effects can be applied from the Home tab on the Ribbon.

Other basic effects are available only in the Font dialog box. To open it, click the dialog box launcher in the Font group, or press Ctrl+D. Figure 2-15 shows the Font dialog box:

More underline styles are available from the drop-down list.

You can use a different color for the underline than for the text.

Double-strikethrough runs two horizontal lines through the text.

Small caps make all letters capital style but retain their uppercase/lowercase statuses by the size of the letters.

All caps makes all letters uppercase and the same height.

The Preview area shows a preview of your chosen options. In this case, it shows small caps and italic with a dotted underline.

To apply the effects shown in Figure 2-13, you must use the Effects button’s menu, as shown in Figure 2-16. Point to an option on the menu to open its submenu, and then make your selection.

For quick formatting, click one of these preset combinations of the various effects.

Each menu option opens a submenu.

Click the Options command at the bottom of the submenu to open a task pane where you can fine-tune the settings.

Figure 2-15: The Font dialog box provides a complete set of basic effect options.

Figure 2-16: Use the Effects button to apply special effects such as the ones shown in Figure 2-13.

The Number Styles, Ligatures, and Stylistic Sets commands in Figure 2-16 affect the typesetting of the text in subtle ways; these options are rarely used except by publishing professionals.

Copy formatting with Format Painter

It might take several different operations to get some text exactly the way you want it. Once it’s perfect, you can copy its formatting to other text by using Format Painter. This not only saves time, but it ensures consistency. To format text with Format Painter, follow these steps:

Select the text that already has the formatting you want to copy.

Click Format Painter. The mouse pointer appears as a paintbrush.

Drag across the text that should receive the formatting.

After step 3, Format Painter shuts itself off automatically. If you would like it to stay on so you can copy that same formatting to multiple selections, double-click rather than clicking the button in step 2.

Figure 2-17: Use Format Painter to copy formatting.

Change the style set

In “Choose between manual and style-based text formatting” earlier in this chapter, you learned that each document has default definitions of the formatting. Formatting can be manually applied, or it can be indirectly changed by making a change to the underlying style applied to that text.

One way to change a document’s look without manually tampering with individual paragraph settings is to apply a different style set. A style set is a collection of definitions for the most commonly used styles in a document, such as Normal, Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on. When you apply a different style set, you redefine these styles without having to manually do so.

1. Start with a document that already has some text typed in it.

If you just want some dummy text to practice with and don’t know what to type, type =RAND(5) and press Enter to generate five sample paragraphs.

On the Design tab, roll your mouse over several of the samples in the Style Sets gallery to see the different formatting available.

3. Click the sample that best represents what you want.

Click More for more choices. (See in Figure 2-18.)

Figure 2-18: Apply a style set from the Design tab.

Apply a different theme

A theme is a named collection of settings for three types of formatting: fonts (one for headings and one for body), colors (one for each of 12 placeholders), and graphic object formatting effects. Themes are useful for ensuring document-wide consistency, but they go even further than that. Applying the same theme to multiple documents can ensure consistency across your entire library of work, including work you do in other Office applications like Excel and PowerPoint.

Each document starts with a default theme applied, which it inherits from the template on which it is based. The Normal template by default uses a theme called Office.

On the Design tab, click Themes.

Click the desired theme.

Figure 2-19: Apply a theme to affect the documents colors, fonts, and effects.

You can modify each of the theme’s three aspects separately by choosing a color, font, or effect set from the Design tab. These sets do not correspond one-to-one with the themes on the Themes button’s list; there are more color, font, and effect sets than there are themes:

Click Colors and choose a different color set.

Click Fonts and choose a different font set.

Click Effects and choose a different effect set.

Figure 2-20: Change one aspect of a theme individually from the Design tab.

Check spelling and grammar

Word automatically checks spelling as you type, comparing each word to its dictionaries. If you type a word that doesn’t appear, it places a wavy red (non-printing) underline on it, flagging it for your attention.

You can right-click a red-underlined word to see spelling suggestions, as shown in Figure 2-21:

Click a suggestion to change to it.

Click Ignore All to mark this word as correct in the current document only.

Click Add to Dictionary to mark this word correct in this and all other documents.

Figure 2-21: Right-click a word with a wavy red underline to see spelling suggestions.

Grammar errors are similar, except they appear with a wavy blue underline. A grammar error might be a usage error such as “is” versus “are” or a punctuation error such as too many spaces between words, as in Figure 2-22:

Click a suggestion to change to it.

Click Ignore Once to ignore this error but not errors similar to it.

Click Grammar to open the Grammar task pane, which is explained next.

Figure 2-22: Right-click a wavy blue underline to correct a grammar error.

In a long document, you may find it easier to use the full Spelling and Grammar tool in Word rather than handle each underlined item individually. Here’s how to use it:

On the Review tab, click Spelling & Grammar. A task pane opens. It is either the Spelling task pane or the Grammar task pane, depending on which type of error it encounters first.

In the Spelling task pane, you can do any of the following:

Click Ignore to ignore this instance only but mark other instances in the same document.

Click Ignore All to mark this word as correct in the current document only.

Click Add to mark this word correct in this and all other documents.

Click a suggestion and then click Change to change this one instance to the selected word.

Click Change All to change all instances in the current document to the selected word.

In the Grammar pane, you can:

Click Ignore to mark this instance as correct.

Click the desired correction and then click Change.

2. Keep working through the spelling and grammar errors Word finds until you see a message that the check is complete.

Click OK.

Figure 2-23: Choose Spelling & Grammar to start a full check of the document.

Figure 2-24: Choose what to do with a spelling error.

Figure 2-25: Choose what to do with a grammar error.

Figure 2-26: Click OK to close the message box.

To customize how the spelling and grammar are checked, choose File ⇒ Options and click the Proofing tab. You can add and remove words from custom dictionaries, ignore certain spelling and grammar errors, and set up automatic corrections for words you frequently mistype.

Email a document to others

Email can be an efficient way of delivering a document to other people. You don’t have to leave Word in order to send it, provided you have a compatible email application already configured on your computer, such as Microsoft Outlook. (Word doesn’t support web-based email applications such as gmail and Yahoo! Mail for sending documents.) To email a document with Word, follow these steps:

Click File, and click Share.

Click Email.

Click Send as Attachment. A new email opens in your default email application. The file is already attached.

Click in the To box and type the email address of the recipient.

Change the subject if desired. The default is the name of the file being attached.

Click in the message body and type a message if desired.

Click Send.

Figure 2-27: Choose to send a file as an attachment.

Figure 2-28: Compose the email message.

If the file is saved on a sharable drive, such as OneDrive, the Send a Link button is available, and in step 3 you can choose to send a link rather than the attachment. Linking rather than attaching ensures that the recipient sees the latest version.

Save a document in other formats

When you share a document with other people, you are assuming they have Microsoft Word or another application that opens Word files. These days that’s actually a pretty safe bet, with all the options available for opening Word files. WordPad, which comes free with Windows, opens Word documents, and the Word Online program at office.live.com is free to anyone with a Microsoft account.

Nevertheless, you might still want to convert a Word document to some other format in some cases. For example, you could save a document in Word 97-2003 format for backward compatibility with early versions of Word, or you could save in Rich Text Format (.rtf) for compatibility with just about any word processing program in the world.

Here’s how to save a document in another format:

Click File ⇒ Export.

Click Change File Type.

Click the desired file type.

Click Save As. The Save As dialog box opens.

Instead of steps 1-4, you can choose File ⇒ Save, click Browse, and then change the setting in the File type drop-down list.

Navigate to the desired save location.

If desired, change the file name. The Save as type setting should match what you chose in step 3.

Click Save.

Figure 2-29: Choose another format in which to save the document.

Figure 2-30: Choose another format in which to save the document.

Create a PDF or XPS version of your document

You can also save your document in PDF or XPS format. These are both page layout formats, and files in this format are designed to show pages exactly as they will print. They are not designed to be easily editable. You might save a contract in this format, for example, or a ready-to-print brochure.

PDF stands for Page Description Format. It is a very popular format by Adobe. Anyone with the free application Adobe Reader can read PDF files. XPS is the Microsoft equivalent; is has similar features and properties, and can be opened using the XPS Reader application that comes with Windows Vista and later.

Click File ⇒ Export.

Click Create PDF/XPS Document.

Click Create PDF/XPS. The Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box opens.

Change the file name in the File name box, if desired.

Open the Save as Type drop-down list and choose PDF or XPS Document as desired.

In the Optimize For section, click Standard or Minimum Size.

In step 5, use Standard in most cases. Minimum Size decreases the resolution of the file as it decreases its size. The smaller size may be useful when sending a document via email, provided the document’s quality (resolution) is not important.

After step 6 you can click the Options button for a dialog box containing even more options for the resulting PDF or XPS file.

Mark or clear the Open file after publishing check box as desired. If marked, this option opens the PDF or XPS file in an appropriate reader application, outside of Word, after you save.

Click Publish.

Figure 2-31: Save a document as a PDF or XPS file.

Figure 2-32: Specify saving options for your PDF or XPS file.

Print your work

To print a hard copy of your work, first make sure you have a printer set up in Windows. Follow the instructions that come with a new printer to set it up, or use the Add Printer wizard in Windows to install a driver for an existing printer. (See the Devices and Printers section of the Control Panel.)

After the printer is set up and ready, follow these steps.

1. (Optional) If you only want to print a certain part of the document, select the part you want to print.

Click File, and click Print.

In the Printer section, make sure the correct printer name appears. If needed, open the drop-down list and choose a different printer.

In the Copies box, type the number of copies you want, or use the up or down increment arrows to change the setting.

In the Settings section, if you don’t want to print the entire document, do any of the following:

Open the drop-down list and choose Print Selection. If you didn’t select anything in step 1, this option is not available.

Open the drop-down list and choose Print Current Page.

Type page numbers in the Pages box. You can specify a contiguous range with a dash like this: 2-15. You can specify individual pages by separating them with commas like this: 2, 4, 5. Specifying a page range automatically sets the drop-down list setting to Custom Print.

6. Set any other printing options as desired. For example:

Print one-sided or two-sided. When you click this button, you have the option of printing on both sides automatically (if your printer supports that) or manually by flipping the paper over after the first side has been printed.

Print collated or uncollated. This is an issue only when printing multiple copies of a multiple-page document. Collated prints the pages in sets (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3); uncollated prints all copies of each page together (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3).

Portrait or landscape orientation. Portrait prints along the narrow edge of the paper; landscape prints along the wide edge.

Paper size. Change this setting to correspond to the actual paper size you are using.

Margins. Change to a preset such as Wide or Narrow, or choose Custom Margins to enter your own settings.

Pages per sheet. The default is 1, but you can print multiple pages per sheet, shrinking down each page so that they all fit. You probably won’t be able to read each page very well, though.

When all the settings are the way you want them, click Print.

Figure 2-33: Check the printer name and other settings.

Figure 2-34: Set the print range if you don’t want to print the entire document.

Figure 2-35: Modify any other print settings as desired.

Figure 2-36: Click Print to print the document with the settings you have specified.

Word has a Quick Print feature that enables you to print with the default settings with a single click. It’s not readily available by default, though. To add it to the Quick Access toolbar:

Click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar arrow.

Choose Quick Print.

Figure 2-37: Add Quick Print to the Quick Access toolbar.