Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is the most suitable software utilized for building text files. These
text files can be altered and transferred from the creator to others and edited by
them as well.

MS Word developed by Microsoft is one of the most widely used programs of

Microsoft Office suite. This article gives an introduction to MS Word, its various
features, and its uses in detail.

It is one of the office productivity applications involved in the Microsoft Office suite.
Formerly developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, software engineers. It
was first released in 1983. Any word file is by default saved with the extension “.doc”.

Introduction to MS Word

What is ms word? Microsoft Word enables us to create professional-quality reports,

documents, resumes, and letters. Unlike a plain text editor, Microsoft Word has
highlights including grammar check, spell check, image support, text and font
formatting, advanced page layout, HTML support, and more.

Follow these simple steps to open MS Word on your individual computer:

Click on Start →Go to All Programs → Select MS Office → Then select MS Word.

One can create MS Word doc by these simple steps:

Step 1: Open Microsoft Word with the above step.

Step 2: Once the program is open, click on->Microsoft office button(For Windows 7)
or File(For Windows 10) succeeded by->” New” and this will open a new doc.

MS Word is utilized by people of every age group, in schools, in colleges, and for
official purposes as well, therefore having proper knowledge of Microsoft Word is a
necessity.
As a word processing application, there are the following functions available:

To process any instructions on the existing text in Word, first, the user requires to
choose the text. To select any text, the user needs to put the cursor before the word
and press the Shift + Right arrow. Alternatively, the user can place the cursor after
the word ends and press Shift + Left Arrow.

Home

From the Home menu, the user can copy/cut the existing text & paste it to some
other place in the same document or the other document.

The other processes that can be operated from the „Home‟ menu are changing fonts,
colour, size, case, alignment, spacing, etc.

Bullets, numbers, and paragraphs can also be introduced from the same menu. Users
can look for a particular word in the document by clicking on “Find” from the Home
menu or simply Pressing “Ctrl + F”. There is an option of replacing that word too.
Insert

From the „Insert‟ menu, files apart from the text can be embedded in the document.
E.g. screenshots, links & hyperlinks, images, tables, charts, equations, special
symbols, shapes, headers, footers & page numbers.

Design

From the Design menu, users can obtain pre-decided templates of fonts & font sizes
for heading, subheading & other text of the document.

That helps improve the readability of the file quickly.

Page layout option provides the user with a chance to change the spacing before
the paragraphs, indents, and general margin spacing of the page.

References

From the References option, the user can include a footnote, table of contents,
caption, Bibliography & Citation of the texts in different formats like MLA, APA but
for that, the user requires to insert a list of books the user has referred to.

Review

The review option helps users check spelling & grammar errors in the document &
protect the document from being edited by non-trusted users.

MS Word Terminologies

1. Word Wrap- A feature of the word that moves or advances text to the next
line when typing exceeds the right margin without pressing the Enter key.
2. Drag and Drop- A smart approach to copy or transfer text a short distance.
3. Word Art- Text designed as a graphic image.
4. Thesaurus- A feature that provides synonyms or alternative words for chosen
words.
5. Footer- A feature that allows the text/graphics that are marked on every page
or segment, regularly at the bottom yet can be anywhere on a page.
6. Header- A feature that allows text/graphics that are imprinted on every
page/section, usually at the top yet can be anywhere on a page.
 7. Paragraph Styles- A feature that allows text styles for complete paragraphs,
including their fonts, alignments, tabs, etc.
8. Endnotes- Notes or references that resemble at the end of the document.
9. Footnotes- Comments or references that appear at the bottom of each page.
10. Indent- A feature that allows setting a temporary left or right margin for
paragraph lines.
11. The margin- The gap between the edge of the text in the record and
top, base, or side edges of the page.
12. Page Break– The spot in a document where one page ends and the
other starts.
13. Bullets & Numbering- A feature that enables the user to generate
bulleted or numbered paragraphs.
14. Landscape- A terminology used to specify page orientation, where the
page is wider than it is tall.
15. Page Orientation- How pages are laid out in a written document.
16. Portrait- A page orientation where the page is longer than it is wide.
17. Formatting Toolbar- A feature that enables changing character and
paragraph formattings, such as alignment and type styles.
18. Font Style- Certain regular changes in the appearance of a font.
19. Charts– Graphs that employ columns, lines and pie shapes to denote
numbers and data.

Uses of Microsoft Word

1. MS Word allows users to do write-ups, build documents, resumes, records,

instruction documents, or a letter to another person and serves as one of the
most regularly used programs under the Office suite. Other usages of MS
Word are as follows;
2. In the education field, MS Word is regarded as one of the simplest tools which
can be utilized by both teachers and students; for formulating notes more
easily through MS Word by making them more interactive by adding shapes,
images, colours, and other effects.
3. It is also beneficial to make assignments on MS Word and submit them online.
4. In the workplace, MS Word is employed for submitting letters, planning
reports, making bills, sample documents, letterheads, etc.
5. MS Word serves as one of the best tools for creating and editing resumes and
making changes to them.
6. As separate choices are available for table of contents, bibliography, etc., MS
Word acts as the best tool that can be utilized by authors for writing books
and adjusting it as per the requirement.
Microsoft Word keyboard shortcut keys

shortcut keys
Description
hortcut

Ctrl+0 Toggle 6pts of spacing above the paragraph.

Ctrl+A Select all contents of the page.

Ctrl+B Bold highlighted selection.

Ctrl+C Copy selected text.

Ctrl+D Open the font preferences window.

Ctrl+E Align the line or selected text to the center of the

screen.

Ctrl+F Open find box.

Ctrl+I Italic highlighted selection.

Ctrl+J Align the selected text or line to justify the screen.

Ctrl+K Insert a hyperlink.

Ctrl+L Align the line or selected text to the left of the

screen.

Ctrl+M Indent the paragraph.

Ctrl+N Open new, blank document window.

Ctrl+O Open the dialog box or page for selecting a file to

open.

Ctrl+P Open the print window.

Ctrl+R Align the line or selected text to the right of the
screen.

Ctrl+S Save the open document. Like Shift+F12.

Alt+F, A Save the document under a different file name (save

as).

Alt+X Show the Unicode code of a highlighted character.

Ctrl+T Create a hanging indent.

Ctrl+U Underline the selected text.

Ctrl+V Paste.

Ctrl+W Close the currently open document.

Ctrl+X Cut selected text.

Ctrl+Y Redo the last action performed.

Ctrl+Z Undo last action.

Ctrl+Alt+D Insert endnote into document.

Ctrl+Alt+F Insert a footnote into a document.

Ctrl+Alt+N Switch to the draft view.

Ctrl+Alt+O Switch to the outline view.

Ctrl+Alt+P Switch to the print view.

Ctrl+Alt+S Toggles between normal and split mode.

Ctrl+Shift+→ Select the word to the right.

Ctrl+Shift+← Select the word to the left.

Ctrl+Shift+A Sets the selected text to all capital letters.

Ctrl+Shift+D Adds double underline to the selected text.

Ctrl+Shift+E Enable or disable revision tracking.

Ctrl+Shift+F Open Font window to change the font.

Ctrl+Shift+L Quickly create a bullet point.

Ctrl+Shift+> Increase selected font +1pts up to 12pt or lower; if

above 12, increases font +2pts.

Ctrl+] Increase selected font +1pts.

Ctrl+Shift+< Decrease selected font -1pts if 12pt or lower; if

above 12, decreases font by -2pt.

Ctrl+[ Decrease selected font -1pts.

Ctrl+C+/ Insert a cent sign (¢).

Ctrl+'+<char> Insert a character with an accent (acute) mark,

where <char> is the character you want. For
example, if you wanted an accented é you would
use Ctrl+'+e as your shortcut key. To reverse the
accent mark, use the opposite accent mark, often
found on the tilde key.

Ctrl+Shift+8 View or hide non-printing characters.

Ctrl+← Move the cursor one word to the left.

Ctrl+→ Move the cursor one word to the right.

Ctrl+↑ Move the cursor to the beginning of the line or

paragraph.

Ctrl+↓ Move the cursor to the end of the paragraph.

Ctrl+Del Delete word to right of cursor.

Ctrl+Backspace Delete word to left of cursor.

Ctrl+End Move the cursor to the end of the document.

Ctrl+Home Move the cursor to the beginning of the document.

Ctrl+Spacebar Removes all formatting on highlighted text.

Ctrl+Shift+space Creates hard space.

Ctrl+Enter Insert a page break.

Ctrl+1 Single-space lines.

Ctrl+2 Double-space lines.

Ctrl+5 1.5-line spacing.

Ctrl+= Set selected text as subscript.

Ctrl+PgUp Move one full page up in the document.

Ctrl+PgDn Move one full page down in the document.

Ctrl+Shift+= Set selected text as superscript.

Ctrl+Alt+T Insert trademark (TM) symbol.

Ctrl+Alt+1 Changes text to heading 1.

Ctrl+Alt+2 Changes text to heading 2.

Ctrl+Alt+3 Changes text to heading 3.

Ctrl+Alt+F2 Open new document.

Ctrl+F1 Show / hide the Ribbon or Task Pane.

Ctrl+F2 Display the print preview.

Ctrl+F3 Copy the selected text or graphic into Spike.

Ctrl+F9 Create a new field code formatting marks in Microsoft

Word.

Ctrl+F12 Opens document.

Ctrl+Shift+F3 Paste anything copied into Spike.

Ctrl+Shift+F5 Open bookmark window to view and edit bookmarks.

Ctrl+Shift+F6 Switch to another open Microsoft Word document.

Ctrl+Shift+F9 Unlink a linked field or text.

Ctrl+Shift+F12 Print the document.

F1 Open help.

F4 Repeat the last action performed (Word 2000+).

F5 Open the Find, Replace, and Go To window in

Microsoft Word.

F7 Spellcheck and grammar check selected text or

document.

Alt+F7 Finds the next spelling or grammatical error after

text cursor position.

F12 Save As.

Shift+F3 Change the text in Microsoft Word

from uppercase to lowercase or a capital letter at the
beginning of every word.

Shift+F7 Run a Thesaurus check on the selected word.

Shift+F12 Save the open document. Like Ctrl+S.

Shift+Enter Create a soft break instead of a new paragraph.

Shift+PgUp Highlights all text above current text cursor position

or a page length of text above current position.

Shift+PgDn Highlights a text below current text cursor position or

a page length of text below active cells.

Ctrl+Shift+End Highlight all text from current text cursor position to

end of document.

Ctrl+Shift+Home Highlight all text from current text cursor position to

beginning of document.

Shift+Tab Removes indents on the selected line.

Shift+Insert Paste text from clipboard.

Alt+Shift+D Insert the current date field code.

Alt+Shift+T Insert the current time field code.

Alt+F9 Hides and shows field codes.

Alt+F10 Hides and shows the Selection pane.

Windows key+F4 Repeats last typed text.

You can also utilize the mouse to perform many common actions. The following
section contains examples of mouse shortcuts.

Mouse shortcuts Description

Click, hold, and drag Selects text from where you click and hold
to the point you drag and let go.

Double-click If double-clicking a word, selects the

complete word.

Double-click Double-clicking the left, center, or right of

a blank line makes the alignment of the
text left, center, or right aligned.

Double-click Double-clicking anywhere after text on a

line sets a tab stop.

Triple-click Selects the line or paragraph of the text

where the mouse is triple-clicked.

Ctrl+Mouse wheel Zooms in and out of document.