Basic Word: Working with Documents, Formatting Text
Welcome to the Basic Word class from Williamsburg Regional Library. This course will get you started with Microsoft’s
word processing software program, Word, particularly version 2010. It’s a versatile program for creating and editing
documents of all kinds, even working with pictures and charts. Let’s get started!
OBJECTIVE 1: Learn to open Microsoft Word.
You’ll discover in this class that there are often several different ways to do the same thing on your computer,
depending on how you prefer to use it. To open Microsoft Word, you can:
1) Click the Microsoft Word icon on your desktop or the taskbar at the bottom of your screen.
2) Click the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen. Roll over or click on Programs or All Programs then
find the Microsoft Office option. Click or roll over that, and finally click Microsoft Office Word.
When you have Word open it looks
something like this (in Microsoft
Word 2010), although the buttons
in the Ribbon may be placed
differently on a wider screen:
Beneath what you see in this
graphic, you’ll see the taskbar for
Windows, with the Start button on
the left and buttons for other open
windows on the rest of the bar. If
you have more than one Microsoft
Word document open, there will be
a button for each document.
Our class today focuses on the
options available through the File
and Home tabs on the Ribbon. For
more on tools on the other tabs,
come back and take our more
advanced Word classes.
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Basic options for starting, opening, saving, and print documents are located under the File tab. Be aware that if you have
Microsoft Word 2007 or older, instead of a File tab, you’ll have a yellow “Open Office” button instead of a File tab, but
the options are similar under each.
Click the File tab and
the screen changes to
something like the
graphic to the right,
although the left
column will probably
be white, not dark
gray. The main options
are down that left side.
By default, the tab will
show the “Info” option,
which provides
information about the
document, but the
center and right of the
screen will change
based on which option
you select on the left.
Let’s work down the
list on the left.
OBJECTIVE 2: Name and save a document in the documents library. Understand
the difference between “Save” and “Save As” and know how to make future saves
with mouse or keyboard.
When starting a new document, it’s a good idea to save it
immediately to avoid situations where your work can be
lost. Let’s do that. Go to the Home Tab, type your name
on the first line of the document, and then hit Enter on
the keyboard to drop the cursor down a line.
To name and save the document, click the File Tab, and
from the column on the left, click the Save option. When
saving a new file for the first time, this pops up a Save As
dialog box like the one shown to the right. Let’s look at
the different parts of this box.
On the left, you see a list of locations on your computer
where files can be saved. These will include basic “Libraries” and locations such as drives and the Desktop. By default,
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Word saves a new document to the last place a Word file was saved on the computer, usually the Documents library. To
choose a different location, find it in the left column and click it. The line in the box at the top of the screen with the
folder picture at the start shows the path to the location where you’re about to save.
By default, Word suggests a name for the document taken from the first line of text in the document. This is highlighted
on the File Name: line. The line beneath that shows what kind of file type is being saved, by default a Word Document
(.docx). To name the document something else, click in the File Name box, delete the default name, and type in the
name of your choosing.
In our case, let’s accept the defaults and save the document with your name as the document name and in the
Documents library. To do so, just click the Save button at the bottom of the dialog box. The dialog box will go away, and
to show that the save took place, the document name will show on the title line at the top of the window and, if
captions for buttons are turned on, on the button for the document window on the task bar at the bottom of the page.
Although Word usually make autosaves every few minutes to protect your work, it’s still a good idea to continue to save
the document after every twenty minutes of work or so. You can do this in three ways:
1) Click the File Tab, then click Save in the column on the left.
2) Click the Save icon, which looks like a little diskette on the Quick Access Toolbar.
3) Hold down the Control Key (Ctrl) in the lower left corner of the keyboard and then hit the S key.
Once a document is created, you might want to save additional versions of it, for instance saving an extra copy on a flash
drive to carry with you or creating different drafts of the same document like a paper or a resume, each with different
names. That’s when you’ll use the Save As option instead of Save. It’s located beneath Save on the File Tab. When you
click Save As, a Save dialog box appears. Change the location where the new version of the document is saved, save it as
a different file type, or rename the new document, or combine several of these options, and then click the “Save”
button at the bottom of the dialog box.
After you Save As, any changes will be made to the new version of the document, while the old document, unchanged
by any changes made after the Save As to create the new version, will still be on your computer in the same place where
it was before under the old name.
OBJECTIVE 3: Learn to open an existing document.
Click on the File Tab on the right and scan down the list on the left until you see Recent. Click on this to see a list of
Recent Documents opened with Word on the computer and Recent Places where documents have been saved. Most
often, the document you want will be in that list. Just click on its name to open it.
If the document you want is not listed, go back up the list from Recent and choose Open instead. That will start an Open
Dialogue Box which can be used to find any Word document on the computer. Down the left side of this box, common
locations where documents might be saved are listed. Under Favorites, the document might be on the Desktop. Under
Libraries, most documents are by default saved in the Documents library. If the document is on an external drive such as
a flash drive or diskette drive, that drive (if plugged in) will appear under Computer. In any of these locations, the
document might be at the top level or further down in a subfolder. Navigate this hierarchy of locations until you see the
document name on the right, then double click it to open the document. If you already have a document open, the new
document will launch in a new window, with its own button on the taskbar.
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OBJECTIVE 4: Start a new document.
By default, when you start Microsoft
Word, it will open with a new blank
document in place. But to start a
second new document, or if you
originally started Word by opening a
previously existing document, go to the
File Tab, and click New in the options
down the left. That will make the screen
look as it does in the graphic to the left.
The screen shows various templates for
creating a new document. A sample of
the selected template is shown to the
right. The default choice (highlighted in
yellow orange) is a Blank Document. Just click the Create button to the right to start that new blank document in a new
window.
Note: The other templates are tempting, as they offer very fancy looking resumes, letters, newsletters, cards, agendas,
memos, charts, and more. The idea is to start with a template, and just fill your particular content into the appropriate
places in the document. This can be effective, but in practice may be more difficult than it seems. The background
formatting in these templates can be so fancy that beginning Word users are unable to make any but the simplest
changes to the template. Learn how to create a document from scratch first, and then with the skills you build, you’ll be
able to use the advanced formatting in templates more effectively.
If you opened or started any documents beyond the one you initially opened and saved with your name, then close
those documents now. We’ll stick with just one document to avoid confusion.
OBJECTIVE 5: Recognize the file extension for a Word document.
You can recognize Microsoft Word documents in a list of computer files because they have the blue W icon next to them
and have names that end with the extension .docx (or in versions of Word 2003 or earlier .doc). Word can open a few
other file types such as .rtf, .txt, or .dot files as well, although the formatting in these other file types is much simpler.
You may encounter word processing files or other documents that Word cannot open, such as .wps, .pdf, or .wp. You
might be able to get converter software from Microsoft to open these files in Word.
If you are sending a file to someone who does not have Word, use the procedure for Save As. Save a copy of the
document as one of two file types, .pdf if the recipient will read or print the document without changing it digitally, or
.rtf if the recipient will be making digital changes to the file. In the case of .rtf, which stands for rich text format, a simple
word processing format, you may lose some of the fancier features of the document, including anything that is not text.
We’ll come back to more option on the File tab at the end of class, but let’s start
working on our document! Click the Home Tab to begin.
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OBJECTIVE 6: Enter and delete text using the keyboard.
To learn the other functions of Microsoft Word, we’ve got to have text in our documents that we can format. So let’s
type in some simple content. Hit Enter until your cursor (also called the insertion point) is a couple of lines beneath your
name. When you start typing, the text will go wherever that cursor is located. Type the following:
1) Beneath your name at the top of the document, type a short paragraph of three or four lines about what you
want to be able to do with a computer. Note that when you reach the end of a line, you don’t have to hit Enter
to start a new line. The text automatically drops down to the next line when it reaches the right margin. If you
are a slow typist, you can just type nonsense words to make your paragraph. At the end of the paragraph, hit
Enter.
2) Type the name of a favorite book or magazine. Hit Enter twice to move the cursor down two lines.
3) Type the name of your favorite movie or television show. Hit Enter twice to move the cursor down two lines.
4) Type the name of your favorite color. Hit Enter twice to move the cursor down two lines.
5) Finally, type two lists, but don’t number the items in each list. For the first list, make a grocery list of five to six
items, with one Enter after each item. At the end of that list, hit Enter twice.
6) In the second list, type the names of five or six of your favorite actors or writers.
What Are Those Squiggles? I Didn’t Type Them!
As you type, you might see red or green squiggles underlining some of the words or sentences in your document.
The red squiggle indicates a word that the computer thinks is misspelled such as thisss. The green squiggle indicates
that the computer thinks you have made a grammar or spacing error such as this ones, or onelikethis.
You can backspace and fix the mistake, but for purposes of the class, leave the errors alone for now. We’ll show you
how to check and fix spelling later. Remember that some spelling “mistakes” caught by the computer might not
really be mistakes, but simply words it doesn’t recognize, such as proper nouns.
Deleting Text in Microsoft Word
When you type on a keyboard, you’re going to make mistakes, but it’s easy to fix them as you go. There are several ways
to do so:
1) Hit the Backspace key (in the upper right corner of the main part of the keyboard, often labeled ← instead of
“Backspace”), which moves the cursor back one space left each time it is hit, deleting any typing in that space.
Type the text in again correctly.
2) Hit the Delete key (just to the right of the main part of the keyboard), which removes one character or space
immediately to the right of the cursor each time it is hit. If the cursor is at the end of the document, Delete will
act as Backspace does, removing the character to the left of the cursor.
3) Highlight a larger block of text and hit Backspace to remove it all with one keystroke. We’ll show you how to
highlight in just a minute.
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OBJECTIVE 7: Navigate through a document using mouse, scrollbars, and keyboard.
As a document grows, possibly to many pages, you need to move around in it to make adjustments, fix mistakes, or to
find the desired spot to add more. This can be done with mouse or keyboard, whichever you use most comfortably.
With the mouse:
1) Click the arrows on the scrollbar on the right side of your Word window to move up or down. Click the slider on
the scrollbar, hold down, and drag up or down to move more quickly.
2) Click anywhere on the document to move the cursor or insertion point to the place where you click.
3) If your mouse has a scroll wheel between the two mouse buttons, push it forward to move up in the document
and pull it toward you to move down in the document.
With the keyboard:
1) Use the arrow keys to move the cursor up, down, left or right without affecting the text. These keys are in the
area between the letter keys and number pad on the keyboard.
2) Hit the Home key to move the cursor to the start of the current line. Hit End to move to the cursor to the end of
the current line. Hold down the Ctrl key and hit Home to move the cursor to the start of the document. Hold
down Ctrl and hit End to move the cursor to the end of the document.
3) Page Up and Page Down move the cursor up or down one page in the document.
OBJECTIVE 8: Learn how to “Undo” or “Redo” with keyboard or mouse.
A simple method of backing up to fix mistakes or return a document to an earlier state is built into Word (and all of the
Microsoft Office software). It’s called the “Undo” function. Since we’re about to start learning skills with which it is easy
for beginners to make mistakes, this would be a good time to learn to “Undo.” There are two ways to “Undo.”
1) Click the counterclockwise circling arrow
on the Quick Navigation toolbar in the upper left corner of the
Word window. This is the Undo button. It negates the last thing done in the document, whether that be a bit of
typing, formatting, another command you issued, or some autoformatting of text performed by Word.
2) Even easier, hold down Ctrl in the lower left corner of the keyboard and then hit the Z key. This will also Undo.
Undo more than one step by continuing to click the Undo button or repeating the Ctrl +Z hot key, theoretically until the
document is completely blank. You can only undo a document, however, to the state it was in when last opened.
If you accidentally back up too many steps, you can Redo
Undo or using the hot key combination Ctrl +Y.
what you just undid by clicking the Redo button next to
OBJECTIVE 9: Use mouse or keyboard to select or deselect text. Know what will
happen if typing occurs when text is selected. Know how to “Select All.”
It’s possible to make all kinds of changes to the appearance or placement of text with formatting, but to do this, the text
must first be “highlighted” or “selected.” Again, this can be done with either mouse or keyboard, whichever you find
most comfortable.
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With the mouse:
Find the start of the section that you wish to select. Click and hold down the left mouse button, then drag to the end of
the word, phrase, or section that you wish to select. Then let off the button. The selected text will show with black
background and white text:
Hold down the left mouse button firmly when dragging over the top of text
you wish to select. Accidentally sliding on and off the button while dragging
may unintentionally move letters or words to other spots in the document.
You can also click at the end of the section you want to select and drag to
the beginning. To select a single word, just double-click on it. To select a full paragraph, triple-click on it.
With the keyboard:
Place the cursor at one end of the word, phrase, or section that you wish to select by clicking there on the screen. Hold
down the Shift key and then use the up, down, left, or right Arrow keys to arrow to the other end. Let go of the Shift
key and the section you just arrowed over will be selected.
Be Careful!
Once the piece of text you wish to change is selected, it is ready to format in many different ways. One of the ways you
can ”format” your selection is to replace it by typing other characters on the keyboard or delete it by hitting the
backspace or delete key. If you accidentally do this, don’t panic, just use Undo.
To deselect text again after making changes, just click once anywhere on the document.
Select All
To make global changes to an entire document, hold down Ctrl and press “A” to select all. Make the desired changes
then click once on the screen to deselect. There is also a select all option at the far right of the ribbon on the Home Tab.
OBJECTIVE 10: Format the font or size of selected text. Change regular text to Bold,
italicized, underlined, highlighted or colored text.
The buttons to perform the tasks in this objective are on the Home Tab in the Font Group. They look like this:
Clicking the buttons in this section will
change the text you have selected in
corresponding ways.
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Fonts
By default, Microsoft Word will use a particular font for all new documents, usually Calibri, but any highlighted text can
be formatted to use any font available on your computer. This is a great way to customize resumes, invitations, fliers,
and other documents to give them a look that is more professional, fun, creative, or friendly to the eye.
To change the font, first select the text you wish to adjust. Find the box with the font name on the Home Tab of the
Ribbon. To the right of the current font name is a small down arrow. Click the arrow. This drops a box that shows all of
the fonts on the computer. At the top, for convenience, you’ll see fonts that
have recently been used. After these, all of the other fonts on the computer
follow in alphabetical order, though you’ll have to use the scroll bar on the
right side of the drop down or the arrow keys on your keyboard to see all of
them.
Hover with the mouse or arrow key over the name of any font and the selected
text changes to show how that font will look. To make that change permanent,
click the name of the desired font. The drop down window closes and the font
is adjusted. Unless further adjustments are desired, click once more on the
screen to deselect the text.
All kinds of fonts are available, some with characters in other languages or in
symbols, some with unusual spacing between some letters. Generally, pick
blockier fonts for headings, use “sans serif” fonts (like this one, without feet or
small crossing lines on the edge of letters) to provide a more open feel.
Use “serif” fonts (like this one (notice the feet on letters and the small angled finishes at the top of
letters like “l” and “h”) to make large blocks of text in papers slightly easier to read.
Change the font in which your name appears at the top of your document to practice this skill.
Font Size
To the right of the font name on the Ribbon are buttons to change font size. Select some text and:
1) Click the button with the large capital A and up arrow
to increase one size.
2) Click the button with the small capital A and down arrow
to shrink one size.
3) Click the arrow on the right side of the box with the number and in the resulting dropdown list, click any point size you want. If the desired size isn’t in the list, type the
number of the point size and then hit “Enter.”
To practice this skill, change the size of the font in which your name appears so that it is more
appropriate for a heading.
Unless the intended audience has vision issues, use a size between 10 and 12 for text designed to
be read up close on paper or screen. Use size 14 to 18 headings. Use a size of 24 or larger for
documents or fliers to be read at a distance.
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Emphasis
The remaining options for adjusting font give different ways to emphasize the text. Select a block of text and then:
1) Click capital B
to put the text in bold. You can also do this with just the keyboard: Ctrl +B
2) Click capital I
to put the text in italics. You can also italicize with the keyboard: Ctrl +I
3) Click capital U
to underline the text. To underline with the keyboard: Ctrl +U
All of these options “toggle.” That means that if you select text that is in bold, italics, or underlined, then click the
corresponding button again, it will change back to normal formatting.
Practice by increasing the point size of your name and making it bold. Put the name of your favorite book or magazine in
italics. Put an underline beneath the name of your favorite film or television show.
There are also two ways to change the color of text. Select some text and:
1) Click the highlight button (it shows a tiny highlight marker) and then from
the drop-down options, select a color for highlights. This puts a highlighting
streak of color behind the text. This option doesn’t always print well.
2) Click the down arrow next to the font color button, then select a color from
the boxes that appear to change the color of the text itself.
Practice changing the color of text by changing the name of your favorite color in
your document to a corresponding color.
Font commands can be combined. For
instance, change the font, size, and
color, and bold and underline the same piece of text if you choose.
Finally, it should be noted that you can insert the cursor at any point in a document, choose the font options that you
desire, and then type the font for the first time in the format you like instead of changing the format on existing text.
OBJECTIVE 11: Align text left, center, right, or justified.
Now let’s move to the right and look at some options in the Paragraph
group of buttons on the Ribbon.
The four buttons to the right of the font color button control the alignment
of text. Whichever alignment is currently in use (by default left alignment)
will be highlighted in orange-yellow. To change the alignment, either Select
All (Ctrl +A) or select the desired portion and then click the button for the alignment of your choice:
for left alignment
for center alignment
for right alignment
for justified alignment
Practicing changing the alignment of text by centering the line with your name at the top of the page.
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OBJECTIVE 12: Create a bulleted list. Create a numbered or lettered list.
Immediately above the alignment buttons on the Ribbon are three buttons to create
bulleted or numbered lists.
To experiment with this option, select the items from the grocery list in your document.
1) Click the button with the tiny bullets
to place bullets in front of each list item. Note that Word also
autoformats, indenting each bulleted item slightly.
2) Click the down arrow to the right of the Bullets button to choose a particular bullet style. In the box that drops
down, select any of the bullet styles or choose Define New Bullet… to get even more options.
Now select the list of names at the bottom of your document.
1) Click the numbered list button
to get numbers in sequence in front of each list item. Again, Word
autoformats to indent the list items.
2) Click the down arrow to the right of the Numbering button and you can choose a numbering style (such as
roman numerals) or letters instead of numbers. In the box that drops down, select any of the styles that you see.
The third button here is for an outline where combinations of letters and numbers head different lines in the same list.
You can turn on bullets or numbering before typing a list. When you start typing, the first item will get a bullet or
number. At each Enter, the new line will begin with another bullet or the next number or letter in sequence. Adding
items to lists is easy too. Put the cursor at the end of the line just before the spot where you would like to add an item.
Hit Enter. A new line begins with the appropriate bullet or number and later list numbers adjust accordingly.
To end a bulleted or numbered list and go back to regular formatting, hit Enter once, then either
backspace three times to get the cursor back to the left margin (the first time removes the bullet, the
second and third remove the indents) or click the ¶Normal style button (shown right) once.
OBJECTIVE 13: Find particular text within a document.
In a large document, it can become difficult to find a piece of text that you know is there. Don’t
worry, Microsoft Word has a tool to find text. Access it in one of two ways: either click Find (on the
far right end of the Home Tab on the Ribbon) or hold down Ctrl and press F. A box pops up:
Type a word in the box with the cursor, then
hit Enter or click the Find Next button. If that
word is in the document, the document will jump to the next spot
where it appears. Repeat this to jump, in sequence, to each of the
spot where the word shows up. Click “Cancel” at any time to get rid
of the pop-up box and go back to the document at the location of
the most recent jump.
Practice this skill. Place the cursor at the top of your document, then choose Find and type a name that appears in the
last list in your document. Hit Enter and the view jumps in the document to the next occurrence of the word.
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OBJECTIVE 14: Spell-check misspelled words.
Remember those words with the red squiggles under them? You can spell check these words easily. Find a word
underlined with a red squiggle in your document (or type a misspelled word now.) Right-click on that word. A dialog box
pops up with several options. First come words with similar spellings. If you recognize the correct spelling in the list, just
click it and Word changes the misspelled word to the correct word.
If you know that the word is correctly spelled, or want the misspelling in your document, you have other choices. Click
“Ignore” in the list and Word will remove the red squiggle. Click “Ignore All” and Word will remove the red squiggle
beneath that word every time it appears in the document. Even better, click “Add to Dictionary” and Word will
remember the word in the future, no longer treating it as a misspelling in any document. Finally, if this is a typing
mistake you make often (for instance, I often type “thte” when I mean to type “the”), click “Autocorrect” and then the
correct spelling. In the future if you mistype the word again, Word will automatically correct it to the appropriate word.
Warning: Limits of Spell Check
Don’t depend completely on spell check tools in word processing software. Using spell-checking indiscriminately will
result in unintentional and sometimes embarrassing errors. Spell check won’t help you much if you don’t recognize the
correct spelling when you see it. Spell check tools will recognize most names and other proper nouns as errors. Most
important, if your misspelling is still a word, just not the right word (such as “their” for “there,” or “to” for “too”) then
Word probably won’t register a spelling error. Sew bee careful out their.
OBJECTIVE 15: Preview a print job and print all or part of a document.
We’re almost finished, but let’s return to the File Tab for one more option. For this section, please just follow along on
the screen, as depending on where you’re taking this class, a printer may be live and we don’t need to waste paper on
“test” documents.
Print Preview
1) Click the File Tab.
2) In the left column, click Print. In the left center column, you will see print options, to the right of that, a print
preview of the document (on whichever page your cursor is currently on.) The scroll bar to the right of the print
preview can be used to show other pages in the document.
3) If you like what you see in the print preview, then choose the printing options you want and select Print.
When you are working on a document, the view on your screen might be different than how it will print. So use print
preview, or the result may not be what you expect. We cover more of these “View” options in the Intermediate class.
Print
1) Click the File Tab, then click “Print.” Alternatively, you can use the hot keys Ctrl+P.
2) In the right center column shows print options. The first is to the right of the Print button, where you can select
how many copies to print with the up and down arrows.
3) The next option down shows which printer you will send the job to. To access other printers your computer can
see, click the down arrow to the right of the printer name and select a different option. The link labeled “Printer
Properties” just below this allows you to make more advanced printing adjustments.
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4) The default is to “Print All Pages” in a document, but click the
down arrow next to this to switch to printing selected text in the
document, the page where the cursor currently is, or a Custom
Range of pages that you choose.
5) If your printer is capable, the next option down allows you to
change between printing on one or both sides of the paper.
Beneath that is the option to collate multi-page documents or
print all of the first pages, then all of the second, and so on.
6) The print options beneath that involve page orientation, paper
size, and margins, which are also options that you can learn to
adjust on the Page Layout tab in the Intermediate Word class.
OBJECTIVE 16: Learn to access help functions in
Microsoft Word.
Access help in Word by going to the File Tab and clicking Help in the left
column. Click the top option, Microsoft Office Help to get access to the
full range of help tutorials, searchable by keyword. If you just want to
review the basics of Word or see what has changed if you switch to a newer version of the software, choose the second
Getting Started option.
Other websites with good Microsoft Word tutorials include MS Word Help, http://www.mswordhelp.com/ and Allen
Wyatt’s WordTips, http://wordribbon.tips.net/. Remember that you can also search on the Internet for help. Start your
search string with “Microsoft Word 2010” (or your current version number) and then words to describe the concept you
need help with.
Continuing on with WRL to learn more about Word
Sign up for the next class in the sequence, Intermediate Word, to learn these objectives:
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Cut or copy and paste text from one part of a
document to another, between documents, or from
the Internet into a document.
Understand the format painter and styles.
Adjust line spacing in a document and the space
before or after paragraphs.
Indent a section of the document.
Adjust the margins for part or all of a document.
Change the orientation or page size of a document.
Format part of a document in columns.
Insert page numbers and make other adjustments
to headers or footers.
Insert special symbols into a document that aren’t
on the computer keyboard.
Insert page breaks at desired locations.
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Put borders around all or part of a document.
Create a colored background.
Insert and manipulate a text box.
Add hyperlinks to a document.
Spell and grammar check an entire document.
Adjust the way in which the document is viewed.
Insert an image into a document via clip art, file, or
Internet copy and paste.
Adjust the dimensions of an image.
Crop an image.
Move an image in a document and adjust the way
that text wraps around the image.
Position multiple pictures on the same page.
Change a picture to grayscale or black and white.