Word 2016 For Dummies
Overview
The bestselling beginner's guide to Microsoft Word
Written by the author of the first-ever For Dummies book, Dan Gookin, this new edition of Word For Dummies quickly and painlessly gets you up to speed on mastering the world's number-one word processing software. In a friendly, human, and often irreverent manner, it focuses on the needs of the beginning Word user, offering clear and simple guidance on everything you need to know about Microsoft Word 2016, minus the chin-scratching tech jargon.
Whether you've used older versions of this popular program or have never processed a single word, this hands-on guide will get you going with the latest installment of Microsoft Word. In no time, you'll begin editing, formatting, proofing, and
dressing up your Word documents like a pro. Plus, you'll get easy-to-follow guidance on mastering more advanced skills, like formatting multiple page elements, developing styles, building distinctive templates, and adding creative flair to your documents with images and tables.
- Covers the new and improved features found in the latest version of the software, Word 2016
- Shows you how to master a word processor's seven basic tasks
- Explains why you can't always trust the spell checker
- Offers little-known keyboard shortcuts
If you're new to Word and want to spend more time on your actual work than figuring out how to make it work for you, this new edition of Word 2016 For Dummies has you covered.
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About The Author
Dan Gookin wrote the first-ever For Dummies book, DOS For Dummies. The author of several bestsellers, including all previous editions of Word For Dummies, Dan has written books that have been translated into 32 languages with more than 11 million copies in print.
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word 2016 for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
Word is one of the most used computer programs on the planet. Helping you to compose text is one of the things that computers do well, but that doesn’t make the text-writing chore easier or imply that using Word is simple enough that you don’t need help. So enjoy this Cheat Sheet.Getting to know the Word 2016 screenBehold Word 2016’s screen.
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Word
Do you know those features in Word 2016 that you dislike but tolerate? The good news is that you can turn them off. Here's how:
Deactivate the Start screen
If you prefer to see a blank page when you start Word, not a screen full of options, then that screen, the Word Start screen, can easily be disabled. Follow these blessed steps:
Click the File tab.
You are likely to be spending lots of time with Word 2016. So, why not use all the tricks of the trade? Here are ten items of friendly, helpful word-processing advice.
Keep printer paper, toner, and supplies handy
The electronic office is a myth. Along with your word processor, you need some real-world office supplies.
Word allows you to stick any symbol into a document, providing you know the proper secrets. You can use the Insert tab’s Symbol button or, for many common symbols, keyboard shortcuts are available.
For example, the Copyright symbol has the shortcut key Alt+Ctr+C . Press that keyboard shortcut and you see the © in your document.
Word lets you print sheets of identical labels, but they contain only boring text. Try to spice things up by adding color, fancy fonts, and formatting. The best way to spice up a label is to add a picture or other graphics.
Follow these steps:
Click the Mailings tab.
In the Create group, click the Labels button.
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Word 2016 can not only automatically number your pages, but it also lets you place the page number just about anywhere on the page and in a variety of fun and useful formats. Heed these directions:
Click the Insert tab.
In the Header & Footer area, click the Page Number command button.
A menu drops down, showing various page-numbering options.
Both footnotes and endnotes in Word 2016 contain bonus information, a clarification, or an aside to supplement text on a page. Each is marked by a superscripted number or letter in the text1.
1 See? It works!
The difference between a footnote and an endnote is in the placement: A footnote appears on the bottom of the page and an endnote appears at the end of a document.
The sneakiest way to slap down a cover page on your Word 2016 document is to use Word's Cover Page command. Here's how it works:
Click the Insert tab.
In the Pages group, click the Cover Page button.
If you don't see the Pages group or Cover Page button, click the Pages button and then click the Cover Page icon.
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When one of the preset header/footer designs in Word 2016 doesn't cut it, consider creating your own. The secret is to double-click the space at the top or bottom of the page. The header or footer area, respectively, becomes active.
You can place text or any other item, including graphics, in a header or footer.
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Most Word 2016 documents use typical headers and footers, placing common information into one or both areas. To accommodate your hurried desires, you can quickly shove such a preset header or footer into your document. Heed these steps:
Click the Insert tab.
From the Header & Footer group, choose the Header button.
When fine paper is held up to the light, it shows a watermark — an image embedded into the paper. The image is impressive but faint. Word 2016 lets you fake a watermark by inserting faint text or graphics behind every page in your document. Here's how:
Click the Design tab.
In the Page Background group, click the Watermark button.
Not only can you add rows and columns to any of a Word 2016 table's four sides, you can squeeze new rows and columns inside a table. The secret is to click the Table Tools Layout tab. In the Rows & Columns group, use the Insert buttons to add new rows and columns.
To remove a row or column, click to position the mouse, and then click the Table Tools Layout tab.
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Sentences in a Word 2016 paragraph can stack as tight as a palette of plywood. Alternatively, you could choose to keep paragraphs all light and airy, like a soft, fluffy cake. Space can cushion above or below the paragraph. These paragraph air settings are illustrated here.
Spacing in and around a paragraph.
Commands to control paragraph spacing include the traditional line-spacing commands, as well as the Space Before and Space After commands.
Styles in Word 2016 are applied to text just like any other formatting: Select a block of text and then apply the style or choose the style and start typing. The big difference between a style and an individual format is that the style contains multiple formats, applied all at once.
As you hover the mouse pointer over a style in the Style Gallery, text in the document is updated with a style preview.
You choose a theme in Word 2016 by using the Themes button found on the Design tab. Built-in themes are listed along with any custom themes you've created.
Each built-in theme controls all three major theme elements (colors, fonts, graphical effects), changing your document's contents accordingly. Hovering the mouse pointer over a theme changes your document visually, which is a way to preview the themes.
An index is a document reference or list Word 2016 can build and format, providing that you know the trick: You must mark text in a document for inclusion in the index. Once the words are marked, an index field is inserted, which displays the index.
Select index entries in Word 2016
To flag a bit of text for inclusion in an index, follow these steps:
Select the text you want to reference.
The center tab in Word 2016 is a unique critter with a special purpose: Text placed at a center tab is centered on a line. Unlike centering a paragraph, only text placed at the center tab stop is centered. This feature is ideal for centering text in a header or footer, which is about the only time you need the center tab stop.
Text size is set in your Word 2016 document based on the ancient typesetter measurement known as points. Here are some point pointers to keep in mind when formatting text in Word:
The bigger the point size, the larger the text.
Most printed text is either 10 or 12 points tall.
Headings are typically 14 to 24 points tall.
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Word 2016 documents, including blank documents that use the Normal template, are associated with a template. If you choose the wrong template or suddenly desire to change or reassign a document's template, follow these steps:
Open the document that needs a new template attached.
Click the File tab.
On the File screen, choose the Options command.
Styles change, even in Word 2016. When you change your mind about a style in Word 2016 and want to update some specific element, heed these steps:
Summon the Styles pane.
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S.
Position the mouse pointer over the style you want to change.
Don't click, which selects the style. Instead, hover the pointer in the style's entry and a menu button appears on the right.
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You can't create your own themes from scratch, but you can modify existing themes to make your own custom theme. You start by modifying existing theme colors and fonts:
To create a custom color theme, choose Colors→Customize Colors. Use the Create New Theme Colors dialog box to pick and choose which colors apply to text or various graphical elements in your document.
Just to keep you on your toes, Word 2016 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.
Word 2016 stores the most common text-formatting commands on the Home tab, in the Font group, as shown. The base attribute of text is its typeface, or font. The font sets the way your text looks and its overall style.
Text-formatting commands in the Font group.
Although choosing the best font can be agonizing (and, indeed, many graphic artists are paid well to choose just the right font), the process isn't too difficult.
Word 2016 offers the Clear Formatting command because so many formatting commands are available that it's possible for your text to look more like a pile of runes than modern text. Use this command to peel away all formats from your text, just like you peel the skin from a banana.
To remove text formatting, follow these steps:
Click the Home tab.
Most Word 2016 document changes are made sequentially: You write something, save, and then someone else works on the document. If that chaos isn't enough for you, Word allows you to invite people to edit a document while you're working on it. This collaboration feature is called Sharing, probably because a better name wasn't available or Microsoft was pressed for time.
Adding color to your Word 2016 text doesn't make your writing more colorful. All it does is make you wish that you had more color ink when it's time to print your document. Regardless, you can splash color on your text, without the need to place a drop cloth below the computer.
Coloring the text
To change the color of text in a document, follow these steps:
Click the Home tab.
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A quick and handy way to review two documents in Word 2016 is to arrange them side by side. Both documents are visible on the screen and their scrolling is locked so that you can peruse both in parallel. Here's how to accomplish this trick:
Open both documents.
On the View tab, in the Window group, click the View Side by Side button.
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Word 2016's revision-tracking tools make reviews of your documents possible. You have the original copy of your document — the stuff you wrote. You also have the copy that Brianne, from the legal department, has worked over. Your job is to compare them to see exactly what's been changed from the original. Here's what to do:
Click the Review tab.
At some point, you may surrender the notion of needing a table in Word 2016 and desire the text to be freed from the table's confines. To perform such a jailbreak, you convert the table back into plain text or even tab-formatted text. Obey these steps:
Click inside the table you want to convert.
Don't select anything — just click the mouse.
To copy formatting in Word 2016, you use the odd-looking Format Painter. It's not a whisk broom, and it's definitely not a shaving brush. No, it's a paintbrush. Not only that, but it's also a special paintbrush — one that steals text and paragraph formatting by borrowing it from one place in your document and splashing it down in another.
Word 2016's heading styles are numbered Heading 1, Heading 2, on down to Heading 9. You use them to identify different parts of a document, but they also take advantage of other Word features. You're not stuck with using Word's preset heading styles; you can create your own.
For example, text formatted with a heading style appears whenever you use the vertical scroll bar to skim a document.
The easiest way to make up a new style in Word 2016 is to format a single paragraph just the way you like. Once you've set text and paragraph formatting, follow these steps to create the new style:
Select the text you've formatted.
Click the Home tab.
In the Styles group, display the full Quick Styles Gallery.
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A multilevel list in a Word 2016 document consists of items and subitems all properly indented, similar to those presented here. Word automatically formats such a list, but it's a tricky thing to do. Pay attention!
A multilevel list.
To format a multilevel list, click the Multilevel List button, shown here.
Start typing the list.
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The easiest way to create a new template in Word 2016 is to base the template on an existing document — for example, a document you've already written and formatted to perfection. The template retains the document's formatting and styles so that you can instantly create a new document with those same settings.
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To create a new, blank document in Word 2016, press the Ctrl+N key combination. What you see is a new document based on the Normal template. To choose another template, either one supplied by Microsoft or one you've created, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
The File screen appears.
Choose New from the left side of the File screen.
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To build a style in Word 2016, summon the Create New Style from Formatting dialog box. Beyond having a tediously long name, the Create New Style from Formatting dialog box lists all Word's formatting settings and options in one place. If you're familiar with Word's formatting commands, you can use the dialog box to create new styles.
The trick to creating a tablet of contents, or TOC, for your document is to use Word 2016's Heading styles. Use Heading 1 for main heads, Heading 2 for subheads, and Heading 3 for lower-level heads and titles. Word's Table of Contents command uses those formats to build a table of contents field, which reflects the heading names and their page numbers.
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The left tab stop is the traditional type of tab stop. A common use for the left tab stop in Word 2016 is to create a simple two-column list, as shown here.
Two-column list.
Follow these steps to create this type of list:
On a new line, press Tab.
Type the item for the first column.
This item should be short — two or three words, max.
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Saving a document in Word 2016 involves working with both Word and the Windows operating system. This process doubles the chances of something going wrong, so it's high time for an error message. One such error message is
The file whatever already exists
You have three choices:
Replace Existing File: Nope.
Save Changes with a Different Name: Yep.
In Word 2016, tabs are used to make lists or indent text. Sometimes you'll have tabs that you need to delete or clear. To unset or clear a tab stop in Word 2016, follow these steps:
Select the paragraph(s) with the offending tab stop.
Drag the tab stop from the ruler.
Drag downward. The tab stop is removed from the paragraph(s).
Add a comment to your Word 2016 document, and the markup area appears on the right side of the page. The markup area appears whenever a document features comments, but its appearance is controlled by settings on the Review tab.
To hide the markup area, click the Review tab. In the Tracking group, click the Display for Review button, shown here.
Beyond the Word 2016 document format and PDF, you can export your document into other, common file formats. These formats allow for easy document sharing, although they're not as common as they once were.
To export your document into another file format, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
Choose Export from the items on the left side of the screen.
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The Find command in Word 2016 is brilliant enough to locate items in your document such as tab characters or text colored red. The puzzle is how to input that type of information in the Find and Replace dialog box. The secret is to use the Format and Special buttons lurking near the bottom of the dialog box.
The Format and Special buttons are near the bottom of the Find and Replace dialog box.
Styles dwell on the Word 2016 Home tab, in the aptly named Styles group, as shown here. What you see on the Ribbon is the Style Gallery, which can be expanded into a full menu of style choices.
Where Word styles lurk.
Click the dialog box launcher in the lower-right corner of the Styles group to view the Styles pane, also shown.
Don't bother with the Ribbon! To find text in your Word 2016 document, press Ctrl+F, the memorable keyboard shortcut for the Find command. You see the Navigation pane, similar to what's shown here.
The Navigation pane.
In the Search Document box, type the text you want to locate. As you type instances of the text are highlighted in the document.
Perhaps the trickiest thing to replace in a Word 2016 document is formatting. Say you work at the DMV and you've been directed to change all underline text to italic. That trick is possible, but it runs the risk of screwing up the document's formatting.
The general steps for replacing a format are as follows:
Summon the Find and Replace dialog box (press Ctrl+H).
Word 2016's spell-check feature works the second you start typing. Offending or unknown words are immediately underlined with the red zigzag of shame. Leave the word be, correct it, or add it to your own dictionary just to spite Mr. Webster.
Spell checking works thanks to a digital dictionary stocked with zillions of words, all spelled correctly.
On the lower left side of the Font group in Word 2016 you find some of the most common character formats that enable you to change the appearance of your text. These formats enhance the selected font or typeface.
Bold, italic, and underline are among the most common text character formats.
To make text bold, press Ctrl+B or click the Bold command button.
In Word 2016 documents, paragraphs fill the page's margin from side to side, as dictated by the justification or alignment. Exceptions to this rule can be made. A paragraph's first line can be indented, the rest of the lines can be indented, and the left and right sides can be indented. It's paragraph indentation madness!
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The most visual way to adjust a paragraph's indents in Word 2016 is to use the ruler. That tip is helpful only when the ruler is visible, which it normally isn't in Word. To unhide the ruler, follow these steps:
Click the View tab.
In the Show area, ensure that the Ruler option is active.
Click to place a check mark by the Ruler option if it isn't active.
A great way to insert comments in a Word 2016 document is to use Word's Comment feature, found on the Review tab. To adroitly thrust a comment into your document, follow these steps:
Select the chunk of text on which you want to comment.
Be specific. Although you may be tempted to select the entire document, only the first few words of a longer chunk are necessary.
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On the far right of the Word 2016 Insert tab dwells the Symbols group. Two items are found in that group: Equation and Symbol. (If the window is too narrow, you see the Symbols button, from which you can choose Equation or Symbol.) Click the Symbol button see some popular or recently used symbols. Choose a symbol from the menu to insert the special symbol directly into your text.
You have two choices when it comes to starting text at the top of a page in the middle of a Word 2016 document. The first choice is to keep whacking the Enter key until that new page shows up. This approach is horribly wrong. It works, but it leads to trouble later as you edit your document.
The second, and preferred, choice is to insert a hard page break:
Position the insertion pointer where you want one page to end and the next page to start.
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No matter how an image was created, as long as it's found somewhere on your PC, you can stick it into your Word 2016 document. Follow these steps:
Click the mouse in your text where you want the image to appear.
Click the Insert tab; in the Illustrations group, click the Pictures button.
The Insert Picture dialog box appears.
All Word 2016 documents have one section. If you plan on changing page numbers, page orientation, paper size, headers and footers, or similar page formats, the document needs more sections. If you're new to the concept of sections, think of a new section as similar to a page break. The difference is that the new page starts a new section.
The best way to add a table in your Word 2016 document is to use one of Word's table creation commands. The commands build a custom grid of rows and columns. To begin your table-making journey, click the Ribbon's Insert tab. In the Tablets group, the only item is the Table button. Click that button to see the Table menu, as illustrated here.
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To determine which Word 2016 style is currently in use, refer to the Style Gallery. The style of any selected text, or text where the insertion pointer blinks, appears highlighted. The current style is also highlighted if the Styles pane is visible.
To specifically examine the style for any text, use the Style Inspector.
Paragraph alignment in Word 2016 documents has nothing to do with politics, and justification has little to do with the reasons behind putting text in a paragraph. Instead, both terms refer to how the left and right edges of the paragraph look on a page. The four options are Left, Center, Right, and Fully Justified, each covered here.
When you desire to impress someone with your text in Word 2016, try putting two columns on your page. Any more columns, and the text width would be too skinny and difficult to read. Two columns, however, is a great way to get fancy and remain legible.
Start up a new document.
Or if you have an existing document, move the toothpick cursor to the document's tippy-top by pressing Ctrl+Home.
Whenever you have more than two items to describe in your document, consider using one of Word 2016's automatic list-formatting commands to make a bulleted list or a numbered list. In typesetting, a bullet is a graphical element, such as a ball or a dot, which highlights items in a list.
The word bullet comes from the French word boulette, which has more to do with food than with round pieces of lead quickly exiting a firearm, like this:
Bang!
In Word 2016, it's quite easy to make a numbered list; Word does most of the work for you. For a list of numbered items, just write the text. Don't write the numbers at the start of each paragraph. Then, after the list is complete, select the paragraphs as a block and click the Numbering command button, shown here.
It's possible to save your Word 2016 document in the Adobe Acrobat document format, also known as a PDF file. This type of electronic publishing is secretly a form of printing your document. Obey these steps:
Finish your document.
Yes, that includes saving it one last time.
Press Ctrl+P to summon the Print screen.
The completely rational way to combine two cells in a Word 2016 table into one or to split one cell into two is to use the table drawing tools. Heaven have mercy on you should you decide to merge or split cells in any other fashion.
To combine two cells, erase the line that separates them. Follow these steps:
Click the Table Tools Layout tab.
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Whether you adore or detest Word's capability to ridicule your language abilities, you have the final say-so. Plenty of settings and options are available to control Word's spelling- and grammar-checking tools.
Undoing the Ignore All command
Whoops! Did you click that Ignore All command when, in fact, Word was correct and your spelling was all wrong?
After starting Word 2016, the first thing you may see is something called the Word Start screen, as shown here. It's friendlier than that ominous empty page that's intimidated writers since the dawn of paper. (The blank page comes later.)
The Word Start screen.
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.
Word 2016 offers multiple ways to open a document either on local storage or on cloud storage. Open is the standard computer command used to fetch an existing document. Once you find and open the document, it appears in Word's window as though it had always been there.
To open a document in Word, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
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It's possible in Word 2016 to open one document inside another. Doing so isn't as odd as you'd think. For example, you may have your biography, résumé, or curriculum vitae document and want to add that information to the end of a letter begging for a new job. If so, or in any other circumstances, follow these steps:
Position the insertion pointer where you want the other document's text to appear.
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Lots of interesting things can be put in your Word 2016 document that you don't want published or to share with others. These items include comments, revision marks, hidden text, and other items useful to you or your collaborators, which would mess up a document you share with others. The solution is to use Word's Check for Issues tool, like this:
Ensure that your document is finished, finalized, and saved.
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Before you print, preview the look of the final document in Word 2016. Yeah, even though your document is supposed to look the same on the screen as it does on paper, you may still see surprises: missing page numbers, blank pages, screwy headers, and other jaw-dropping blunders, for example.
Fortunately, a print preview of your document appears as part of the Print screen, as shown here.
If your printer is capable of duplex printing, you can direct Word 2016 to print your document on both sides of a sheet of paper. If your printer is so blessed, follow these steps:
Press Ctrl+P when you're ready to print the document.
Ensure that the document has just been saved.
Click the Duplex Printing button on the Print screen.
Printing a document in Word 2016 is easy. Before printing, however, make sure that you preview the document so that you're not surprised by the resulting printout. Follow these steps to print an entire document:
Make sure that the printer is on and ready to print.
Printing works fastest when the printer is on.
Word 2016 enables you to print a range of pages, odd pages, even pages, or a hodgepodge combination of random pages from within your document. To print a range or group of pages, summon the Print screen: Press Ctrl+P.
On the Print screen, look for the Pages text box, illustrated here.
Use the Pages text box to indicate the pages to be printed.
Printing a single page in Word 2016 is useful when the printer goofs up one page in a document and you need to reprint only that page or when you just need a portion of a longer document and want to preserve a tree. Follow these steps to print only one page of your document:
Move the insertion pointer so that it's sitting somewhere on the page you want to print.
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In Word 2016 you can perform a final document proof. It's an all-in-one spelling- and grammar-checking process, which is how spell check worked before it became an on-the-fly feature.
To perform all-at-once document proofing, follow these steps:
Click the Review tab.
In the Proofing group, click the Spelling & Grammar button.
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When you apply a border to a paragraph in Word 2016 — top, bottom, left, right, or all sides — that format sticks to the paragraph. It's echoed in subsequent paragraphs you type, just like any other paragraph-level format. To apply a border to any or all sides of a paragraph, follow these steps:
Place the insertion pointer in a paragraph.
Text fills a Word 2016 table on a cell-by-cell basis. A cell can be empty or contain anything from a single letter to multiple paragraphs. The cell changes size to accommodate larger quantities of text.
Within a cell, text is formatted just as it is elsewhere in Word, including margins and tabs.
Although a single cell can deftly handle vast quantities of text, graphic artists don't put a lot of text into a single cell.
You can recover some — but perhaps not all — of an unsaved document in Word 2016. When you forget to save a document, or the computer crashes, or the power goes out, valiantly make this attempt:
Press Ctrl+O to summon the Open screen.
Ensure that Recent is chosen as the file location.
Click the Recover Unsaved Documents button, found at the bottom of the list of recent files.
You don't remove style formatting from text in Word 2016 as much as you reapply another style. The only official way to remove a style is to replace it with the Normal style.
Because many Word users don't understand styles, Word comes with Clear Formatting commands. You can see such commands referenced in this figure, which illustrates the Style Inspector.
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You can't destroy the header or footer area in a Word 2016 document, but you can remove all text and other stuff: Edit the header or footer, press Ctrl+A to select everything, and press the Delete key. Poof!
The more official way to remove a header or footer is to follow these steps:
Edit the document's header or footer.
The Word 2016 Replace command's dialog box sports the handy Replace All button because it's tedious to use the Replace button when replacing text. Sure, sometimes it's handy, especially when you don't want to replace everything. But if you've changed your novel's main character name from Xlaborded to Zlaborded, you can probably and safely replace every instance all at once.
The Find command in Word 2016 is good only for finding stuff. When you want to find something and replace it with something else, you use the Find and Replace command. To find a bit of text and then replace it with another bit of text, use the Replace command. Follow these steps:
Click the Home tab.
In the Editing group, click the Replace command button.
Word 2016 is not an image-editing program. You can, however, resize and crop images within Word documents. Word does feature a handful of commands that let you manipulate pictures and images in a document but only in a simple way.
Resizing an image in Word 2016
To make an image larger or smaller, heed these steps:
Select the image.
After your poor, limp Word 2016 document is returned to you, the best way to review the damage inflicted by reviewers (editors) is to use the commands on the Review tab, located in the Changes group. These commands are illustrated in the figure; depending on the window size, you may or may not see text explaining what each one does.
Don't think that you have to wait until you finish a Word 2016 document to save it. In fact, you should save almost immediately — as soon as you have a few sentences or paragraphs.
To save a document for the first time, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
Choose the Save As command.
The Save As screen appears, similar to the one shown here.
Two things you can select in a Word 2016 table are the text inside the cells or the cells themselves. You can also select rows, columns, or the entire table. Here are some suggestions:
Triple-click in a cell to select all text in that cell.
Select a single cell by positioning the mouse pointer in the cell's lower-left corner.
Emailing your Word 2016 document is a snap — as long as you're using Microsoft Outlook as your email program. If not, you need to save your document as you normally would, and then use your email program (which isn't Outlook) to create a new message with the document chosen as a file attachment.
If you do use Outlook as your email program, and it's all set up and actually works, follow these steps in Word to send a document via email:
Save your document one more time.
Part of Word 2016's AutoCorrect function is a feature named AutoFormat. Whereas AutoCorrect fixes typos and common spelling boo-boos, AutoFormat fixes formatting fumbles.
Enjoying automagical text in Word 2016
AutoFormat controls some minor text formatting as you type. All its settings are visible in the AutoCorrect dialog box's AutoFormat as You Type tab, as shown here.
In Word 2016 you can set some weird and funky text formatting. On the Home tab in Word 2016, in the Font group, you find a button adorned with a fuzzy A, as shown here. It's the Text Effects and Typography button.
Click that button to view the Text Effects menu, as shown on the far left of the following figure.
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An aspect of page size in Word 2016 documents is whether the page is oriented vertically or horizontally. Page orientation could be set by adjusting the page size, but it's much easier to change the page orientation. Follow these steps:
Click the Layout tab.
Click the Orientation button.
The Orientation button is illustrated here.
Margins in Word 2016 documents create the text area on a page, left, right, top, and bottom. They provide room between the text and the page's edge, which keeps the text from leaking out of a document and all over the computer.
Word automatically sets page margins at 1 inch from every page edge. Most English teachers and book editors want margins of this size because these people love to scribble in margins.
You probably assume that each new Word 2016 document starts with a page size reflecting a typical sheet of paper. Such foolishness. Word's Normal template does specify a page size equivalent to a standard sheet of paper. In the United States, that's 8-1/2-by-11 inches. In Europe, the A4 size is used.
You're not stuck with either size, because the page size is part of the page format, and you can change it.
To be a kind and gentle collaborator, activate Word 2016's Tracking feature before you being making changes to someone else's text: Click the Review tab, and in the Tracking group, click the Track Changes button, shown here.
From that point on, any changes made to the document are color-coded based on who is making the changes and what level of markup is displayed:
For Simple Markup, a color-coded bar appears to the left of a paragraph, indicating that some change was made.
You have two quick ways to undo autoformatting in Word 2016. The first, obviously, is to press Ctrl+Z on the keyboard, which is the Undo command. That's easy.
You can also use the Lightning Bolt icon to undo autoformatting. Clicking the icon displays a drop-down menu, shown here. Use the options displayed to control the AutoFormat options as you type.
Working with an older Word document is cinchy: Simply open the document in Word 2016. You see the text [Compatibility Mode] after the filename at the top of the window. This text is a big clue that you're using an older Word document. Another clue is that a lot of Word's features, such as the capability to preview format changes and document themes, don't work when you edit an older document.
All Word 2016 documents sport the Normal style, which is the standard text and paragraph style and probably the style upon which all your personal styles are based. Like just about anything in Word, the Normal style can be changed — but be cautious if you do so.
To alter the Normal styles font or paragraph format, summon the Font or Paragraph dialog boxes.
The Navigation pane in Word 2016 is a handy tool for locating text. When it comes to exercising some Find command muscle, however, you must turn to a more specific tool. That's the traditional Find dialog box, called the Find and Replace dialog box, shown here.
The Find and Replace dialog box.
Follow these steps to conjure forth the Find and Replace dialog box:
Click the Home tab.
The AutoCorrect feature in Word 2016 fixes hundreds of common typos and spelling errors on-the-fly. You have to be quick to see it in action.
For example, in Word you can't type the word mispell (with only one s). That's because AutoCorrect fixes that typo the split second that you press the spacebar.
AutoCorrect also converts common text shortcuts into their proper characters.
A leader tab shows a series of dots or other characters where the tab appears on the page. Press the Tab key in Word 2016 and the insertion pointer hops over to the next tab stop. The space added is empty, but it doesn't have to be. Word lets you apply different styles to the empty space, which help create something called a leader tab.
Word
Word 2016's paragraph-level formatting commands affect paragraphs in a document. That makes complete sense, but what is a paragraph? Officially, a paragraph is any chunk of text that ends when you press the Enter key. So a single character, a word, a sentence, or a document full of sentences is a paragraph, so long as you press the Enter key.
Aside from being a most excellent pun, the bar tab isn't a true tab stop in Word 2016. Instead, consider it a text decoration. Setting a bar tab merely inserts a vertical bar in a line of text, as shown here. Using a bar tab is much better than using the pipe (|) character on the keyboard to create a vertical line in a multicolumn list.
Word
You can do quite a bit with borders and shading in Word 2016. To fully flex Word 2016's border bravado, summon the Borders and Shading dialog box:
Click the Home tab.
In the Paragraph group, click the triangle by the Borders button to display the Borders menu.
Choose the Borders and Shading command.
The Borders and Shading dialog box appears, as shown here.
Use the decimal tab in Word 2016 to line up columns of numbers. Although you can use a right tab for this job, the decimal tab is a better choice. Rather than right-align text, as the right tab does, the decimal tab aligns numbers by their decimal — the period in the number, as shown here.
Using the decimal tab to line up numbers.
Word 2016 features a single location where all your font-formatting dreams can come true. It's the neatly organized Font dialog box, shown in the following figure.
The neatly organized Font dialog box.
To summon the Font dialog box, obey these steps:
Click the Home tab.
In the Fonts group, click the dialog box launcher button.
Word 2016's Go To command allows you to send the insertion pointer to a specific page or line or to the location of a number of interesting items that Word can potentially cram into your document. The Go To command is your word-processing teleporter to anywhere.
To use the Go To command, follow these steps:
Click the Home tab.
Word 2016 offers on-the-fly grammar checking. Mark Twain once referred to English spelling as "drunken." If that's true, English grammar must be a hallucination. It's just like having your eighth-grade English teacher inside your computer — only it's all the time and not just during third period.
Word's grammar checker works like the spell checker.
Word
When you want more control over page formatting in Word 2016, you must beckon forth the Page Setup dialog box. Specifically, you use the Margins tab in that dialog box, which is shown in the figure.
The Margins tab in the Page Setup dialog box.
To use the Page Setup dialog box to specifically set page margins, obey these steps:
Click the Layout tab.
Word
Word 2016 offers a couple of commands that enable you to fix mistakes and restore your documents — Redo and Repeat. If you undo something and — whoops! — you didn't mean to, use the Redo command to set things back to the way they were.
For example, you may type some text and then use Undo to "untype" the text.
An important part of Word 2016'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 here. Each tab holds separate groups. Within the groups, you find the command buttons that carry out various word-processing duties.
The visual and quick way to set a tab stop in Word 2016 is to use the ruler. Assuming that the ruler is visible, the process involves two steps:
Click the Tab gizmo until the desired tab stop type appears.
The Tab gizmo also shows paragraph indent controls.
Click the ruler at the exact spot where you want the tab stop set.
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For precisely setting tabs in Word 2016, bring up the Tabs dialog box. It's also the only way to get at certain types of tabs, such as dot leader tabs, which are covered elsewhere in this chapter.
Keep in mind that the Tabs dialog box doesn't work like a typical Word dialog box: You must set the tab position and type first and then click the Set button.
The Undo command in Word 2016 undoes anything you do in Word, which includes formatting text, moving blocks, typing and deleting text — the whole enchilada. You have two handy ways to unleash the Undo command:
Press Ctrl+Z.
Click the Undo command button on the Quick Access toolbar.
You also can use the Ctrl+Z key combination, but an advantage of the Undo command button is that it sports a drop-down menu that helps you review the past several things you've done, which can be undone.
All text you copy or cut in Word 2016 is stored in a location called the Clipboard. That's the standard cut/copy/paste holding bin for text, but in Word the Clipboard is more powerful than in other Windows programs. Specifically, you can use the Clipboard task pane to examine items cut or copied, and paste them again in your document in any order.
You probably don't think of a document's text as a column. No, it's just text on a page, margin to margin. Secretly, however, Word 2016 looks at such text as a single column. So whether you use columns or not, Word has already formatted your document that way.
To set the number of text columns on a page, you use Word's Columns command: Click the Layout tab, and in the Page Setup group, click the Columns button.
The door to Word 2016's graphical closet is found on the Insert tab. The command buttons nestled in the Illustrations group place various graphical goobers into your text. Here's how the process works for pictures in the text:
Click the mouse at the spot in your text where you desire the image to appear.
You don't need to be precise because you can always move the image later.
Graphics in a Word 2016 document must cohabit well with the text. To keep both happy, you must understand Word's image layout options. For smaller images, or images that otherwise break up a document in an inelegant manner, choose one of the text-wrapping layout options. Heed these steps:
Click to select the image.
Word 2016 comes with a digital highlighter pen that lets you mark up and colorize the text in your document without damaging the computer's monitor. To highlight text, abide by these steps:
Click the Home tab.
In the Font group, click the Text Highlight button.
Word is now in Highlighting mode.
Drag the mouse over the text you want to highlight.
Word
The Style Gallery appears on the Home tab in Word 2016. You probably ignore it because it’s chock full of mystery styles you don’t use, but the thing is entirely customizable. If you’re going to the trouble of creating your own template with your own styles, why not modify the template so that you can put your styles in the Style Gallery?
In Word 2016, a style is a collection of text and paragraph formats. These formats are saved as a collection, given a name, and applied to text just like any other format. The difference is that when you apply a style, you're applying all the formats stored in that style. For heavy-duty formatting, styles save time.
Themes in Word 2016 apply decorative styles, such as fonts and colors, to your document, giving your written efforts a professionally formatted feel with minimal fuss or talent. It's like having a graphics designer assist you but without having to suffer through her lamentable complaints about how her boyfriend pays no attention to her and never takes her anywhere.
Word
Some key combinations insert characters into your Word 2016 document. If you find these characters useful in your day-to-day typing duties, you may want to consider using their keyboard shortcuts:
Symbol Name
Symbol
Keys to Press
Euro
€
Ctrl+Alt+E
Trademark
™
Ctrl+Alt+T
Copyright
©
Ctrl+Alt+C
Registered
®
Ctr
Word is one of the most used computer programs on the planet. Helping you to compose text is one of the things that computers do well, but that doesn’t make the text-writing chore easier or imply that using Word is simple enough that you don’t need help. So enjoy this Cheat Sheet.Getting to know the Word 2016 screenBehold Word 2016’s screen.
Word 2016 has many keyboard commands to offer you. Whether you use a computer with a honking 105-key keyboard or a tablet with no keyboard, word processing remains a keyboard-bound activity. The following tables show how to access Microsoft Word 2016’s commands and functions.
Here are all of the options you can utilize for cursor movement.
Here’s a short list of the most helpful Microsoft Word 2016 tricks that may come in handy for your word-processing needs. Keep these suggestions in mind when you compose a new document:
Press Ctrl+Enter to start a new page. This key combination inserts a hard page break, which forces a new page automatically.
Press Shift+Enter to insert a soft return.
In the modern technological age, there are no limits on where you can use Word 2016. Here are some suggestions and tips for using Word on a tablet or any device with touchscreen input.
Adjust command button spacing
To make it easier for your stubby fingers to poke a command button on the Ribbon, ensure that Touch/Mouse mode is active.
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