Chapter 1
In This Chapter
Starting Word
Deciphering the Word screen
Understanding the Ribbon
Zooming in and out
Quitting Word
Minimizing Word
Life would be easier if you used a pencil to write text. You could grab a copy of Pencils For Dummies and be on your way. That book is far thinner than this one and has more illustrations, which some people find enriching. Your ambitions are most likely higher, which is why you’ve chosen, or had the choice thrust upon you, to use Microsoft Word as your text composition tool. That’s a good decision, but Word remains a far, far more complex tool for composing text than a wooden cylinder filled with graphite.
As computer software, Microsoft Word dwells in the realm of Windows. To get work done in Word, you must contend with the multitudinous ways available in Windows to run the Word program. These methods can vary from the obvious to the obnoxiously cryptic, so instead I present you with the three most common ways to start your Word day.
Propriety demands that I show the traditional, boring way to start Word. Let me be quick:
Press the Windows key on the keyboard.
The Windows key is adorned with the Windows logo icon, which I won’t illustrate here because it’s changed over the years. The key is nestled between the Ctrl and Alt keys to the left of the spacebar. A duplicate is found on the right side of the spacebar. Use either key.
Look for Microsoft Word on the Start menu.
The item might be titled Word or Word 2016 or something similar.
If you don’t find Word right away in Windows 10, click the All Apps button to hunt it down. In Windows 7, click the All Programs button.
Sometimes Word is found on a Microsoft Office or Office 2016 submenu.
Watch in amazement as the program unfurls on the screen.
The best way to start Word, and the way I do it every day, is to click the Word icon on the taskbar. Word starts simply and quickly.
The issue, of course, is how to get the Word icon on the taskbar. Follow these steps:
Find the Word icon on the Start button’s All Programs menu.
See the preceding section, Steps 1 and 2.
The Word icon is pinned (permanently added) to the taskbar.
You use the Word program to create documents, which are stored on your computer in much the same way as people pile junk into boxes and store them in their garages. To start Word, open a document. Follow these steps:
Locate the document icon.
Use your Windows kung fu to open the proper folders and hunt down a Word document icon, similar to what’s shown in the margin.
Double-click the icon.
This step is a standard Word operation: Double-click an icon to open a program. In this case, opening a Word document starts Word.
The document is opened and presented on the screen, ready for whatever.
Like all programs in Windows, Word offers its visage in a program window. It’s the place where you get your word-processing work done.
After starting Word, the first thing you may see is something called the Word Start screen, as shown in Figure 1-1. It’s friendlier than that ominous empty page that’s intimidated writers since the dawn of paper. (The blank page comes later.)
You can use the Start screen to open a previously opened document, start a new document based on a template, or start with a blank document.
Previously opened documents are listed on the left side of the window, as illustrated in Figure 1-1. Word’s templates are found under the heading Featured. Templates you’ve created appear under the Personal link. Click a template thumbnail to create a new document based on that template.
To start on a blank document, click the Blank Document template. Then you see the ominous empty page, which I wrote about earlier.
Once you’ve made your choice, Word is ready for you to start writing. Word is also equally content if you just stare at the screen and await inspiration.
Writing is scary enough when you first see the blank page. With a computer, that level of terror just isn’t good enough. Therefore, Word festoons its program window with all kinds of controls. I recommend that you refer to Figure 1-2 to get an idea of some basic terms. Ignore them at your peril.
The details of how all the gizmos and whatnot in the Word window work are covered throughout this book. They give you more control over your document, although the basic task of typing text is pretty straightforward. See Chapter 2 to get started.
An important part of Word’s interface is the Ribbon. It's where a majority of Word’s commands dwell and where settings are made. These items appear as buttons, input boxes, and menus.
The Ribbon is divided into tabs, as shown in Figure 1-3. Each tab holds separate groups. Within the groups, you find the command buttons that carry out various word-processing duties.
To use the Ribbon, first click a tab. Then locate the command you need by scanning the group names, and then hunting down the button. Click the button to activate the command or to display a menu from which you can choose a command.
The good news is that you can hide the Ribbon if it bothers you. That way you see more document and less junk. The bad news is that you might accidentally hide the Ribbon when you don’t want to.
To control the Ribbon, use the Ribbon Display Options menu, located in the upper-right part of the Word window and illustrated in Figure 1-3. Choose an item to determine how to display the Ribbon. Your choices are
To temporarily hide the Ribbon, click the Hide the Ribbon button, labeled in Figure 1-3. To bring back the Ribbon, click a tab and then at the spot where the Hide the Ribbon button appears. Click the pushpin icon to make the Ribbon stick.
Just to keep you on your toes, Word offers multiple ways to view your document. The blank area where you write, which should be full of text by now, can be altered to present information in a different way. Why would you want to do that? You don’t! But it helps to know the different ways so that you can change them back.
The standard way to view a document is called Print Layout view. It’s the view shown in this book and it’s how Word normally starts. A virtual page appears on the screen, with four sides and text in the middle. What you see on the screen is pretty much what you’ll see in the final results, whether printed or published as an electronic document.
The other views are
To switch between Read Mode, Print Layout, and Web Layout views, click one of the View buttons, found in the lower-right corner of the Word program window (refer to Figure 1-2).
To get to Outline and Draft views, as well as to see all View modes in one location, click the Views tab and choose a command button from the Views group.
When the information in Word’s window just isn’t big enough, don’t enlarge the font! Instead, whip out the equivalent of a digital magnifying glass, the Zoom command. It helps you enlarge or reduce your document, making it easier to see or giving you the Big Picture look.
Several methods are available to zoom text in Word. The most obvious is to use the Zoom control found in the lower-right corner of the Word window on the status bar. Adjust the slider right or left to make the text larger or smaller, respectively.
To make the text appear on screen as close to actual size as possible, click the 100% button on the status bar.
It's the pinnacle of etiquette to know when and how to excuse oneself. For example, the phrase “Well, I must be off,” works a lot better than growling, “Something more interesting must be happening anywhere else” — especially at Thanksgiving. The good news for Word is that’s completely acceptable to quit the program without hurting its feelings.
When you've finished word processing and you don't expect to return to it anytime soon, you quit the Word program. Click the X button in the upper-right corner of the Word program window (refer to Figure 1-2).
The catch? You have to close each and every Word document window that’s open before you can proclaim that you’ve completely quit Word.
The other catch? Word won’t quit during that shameful circumstance when you have unsaved documents. If so, you’re prompted to save the document, as shown in Figure 1-4. My advice is to click the Save button to save your work; refer to Chapter 8 for specifics on saving documents.
If you click the Don’t Save button, your work isn’t saved and Word quits. If you click the Cancel button, Word doesn’t quit and you can continue working.
You don't always have to quit Word. For example, if you're merely stopping work on one document to work on another, quitting Word is a waste of time. Instead, you can close the document.
To close a document in Word and not quit, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
The File screen appears. Commands line the left side of the screen, as shown in Figure 1-5.
Save the document, if you’re prompted to do so.
The shame! Always save before closing. Tsk-tsk.
After it’s closed, you return to the main Word window, although a document isn’t shown and many of the command buttons are dimmed (unavailable). At this point, you can start working on a new document or open a document you previously saved.
Bottom line: There’s no point in quitting Word when all you want to do is start editing a new document.
Don’t quit Word if you know that you will use it again soon. In fact, I've been known to keep Word open and running on my computer for weeks at a time. The secret is to use the Minimize button, found in the upper-right corner of the screen (refer to Figure 1-2).
Clicking the Minimize button shrinks the Word window to a button on the taskbar. With the Word window out of the way, you can do other things with your computer. Then when you're ready to word-process again, click the Word button on the taskbar to restore the Word window to the screen.
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