Word 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual

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EVERY WORD PROJECT YOU CREATE—whether it's a personal letter, a TV sitcom script, or a thesis in microbiology—begins and ends the same way. You start by creating a document, and you end by saving your work. Sounds simple, but to manage your Word documents effectively, you need to know these basics and beyond. This chapter shows you all the different ways to create a new Word document—like starting from an existing document or adding text to a predesigned template—and how to choose the best one for your particular project.

You'll also learn how to work faster and smarter by changing your view of your document. If you want, you can use Word's Outline view when you're brainstorming, and then switch to Print view when you're ready for hard copy. This chapter gets you up and running with these fundamental tools so you can focus on the important stuff—your words.

If you've used Word before, then you're probably familiar with opening and saving documents. Still, you may want to skim this chapter to catch up on the differences between this version of Word and the ghosts of Word past. You'll grasp some of the big changes just by examining the figures. For more detail, check out the gray boxes and the notes and tips—like this one!

The first time you launch Word after installation, the program asks you to confirm your name and initials. This isn't Microsoft's nefarious plan to pin you down: Word uses this information to identify documents that you create and modify. Word uses your initials to mark your edits when you review and add comments to Word documents that other people send to you.

You have three popular ways to fire up Word, so use whichever method you find quickest:

▸ Start menu. The Start button in the lower-left corner of your screen gives you access to all programs on your PC—Word included. To start Word, choose Start → All Programs → Microsoft Office → Microsoft Office Word.

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The first time you launch Word after installation, the program asks you to confirm your name and initials. This isn't Microsoft's nefarious plan to pin you down: Word uses this information to identify documents that you create and modify. Word uses your initials to mark your edits when you review and add comments to Word documents that other people send to you.

You have three popular ways to fire up Word, so use whichever method you find quickest:

▸ Start menu. The Start button in the lower-left corner of your screen gives you access to all programs on your PC—Word included. To start Word, choose Start → All Programs → Microsoft Office → Microsoft Office Word.
▸ Quick Launch toolbar. The Quick Launch toolbar at the bottom of your screen (just to the right of the Start menu) is a great place to start programs you use frequently. Microsoft modestly assumes that you'll be using Word a lot, so it usually installs the Word icon in the Quick Launch toolbar. To start using Word, just click the W icon, and voila!

When you don't see the Quick Launch toolbar, here's how to display it: On the bar at the bottom of your screen, right-click an empty spot. From the menu that pops up, choose Toolbars → Quick Launch. When you're done, icons for some of your programs appear in the bottom bar. A single click fires up the program.
▸ Opening a Word document. Once you've created some Word documents, this method is fastest of all, since you don't have to start Word as a separate step. Just open an existing Word document, and Word starts itself. Try going to Start → My Recent Documents, and then, from the list of files, choose a Word document. You can also double-click the document's icon on the desktop or wherever it lives on your PC.

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When you start Word without opening an existing document, the program gives you an empty one to work in. If you're eager to put words to page, then type away.

Sooner or later, though, you'll want to start another new document. Word gives you three ways to do so:

▸ Creating a new blank document. When you're preparing a simple document—like a two-page essay, a note for the babysitter, or a press release—a plain, unadorned page is fine. Or, when you're just brainstorming and you're not sure what you want the final document to look like, you probably want to start with a blank slate or use one of Word's templates (more on that in a moment) to provide structure for your text.
▸ Creating a document from an existing document. For letters, resumes, and other documents that require more formatting, why reinvent the wheel? You can save time by using an existing document as a starting point. When you have a letter format that you like, you can use it over and over by editing the contents.
▸ Creating a document from a template (Section 5.2). Use a template when you need a professional design for a complex document, like a newsletter, a contract, or meeting minutes. Templates are a lot like forms—the margins, formatting, and graphics are already in place. All you do is fill in your text.

Microsoft provides a mind-boggling number of templates with Word, but they're not the only source. You can find loads more on the Internet, as described on Section 1.2.3. Your employer may even provide official templates for company documents.

To start your document in any of the above ways, click the Windows logo in the upper-left corner of the screen. That's Office 2007's new Office button. Click it, and a drop-down menu opens, revealing commands for creating, opening, and saving documents. Next to these commands, you see a list of your Word documents. This list includes documents that are open, as well as those that you've recently opened. The Office button is also where you go to print and email your documents (Figure 1-2).

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If you've mastered creating a document from an existing document and creating a document from a template, you'll find that opening an existing document is a snap. The steps are nearly identical.

Choose Office button → Open (Alt+F, O). In the Open window (Figure 1-6), navigate to the folder and file you want to open.

The Open window starts out showing your My Documents folder, since that's where Word suggests you save your files. When your document's in a more exotic location, click the My Computer icon, and then navigate to the proper folder from there.

When you open a document you've used recently, you may see its name right on the Office button → Recent Documents menu. If so, simply click to open it without a trip to the Open dialog box.
With the file selected, click Open in the lower-right corner.

The Open box goes away and your document opens in Word. You're all set to get to work. Just remember, when you save this document (Alt+F, S or Ctrl+S), you write over the previous file. Essentially, you create a new, improved, and only copy of the file you just opened. If you don't want to write over the existing document, use the Save As command (Alt+F, A), and then type a new name in the File Name text box.

Figure 1-6: This Open dialog box shows the contents of the tale of two cities folder, according to the "Look in" box at the top. As you can see in the "File name box" at the bottom of the window, the file tale of two cities.docx is selected, a. By clicking Open, Mr. Dickens is ready to go to work.

Opening a file in Word doesn't mean you're limited to documents

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Now that you know a handful of ways to create and open Word documents, it's time to take a look around the establishment. You may think a document's a document—just look at it straight on and get your work done. It's surprising, though, how changing your view of the page can help you work faster and smarter. When you're working with a very long document, you can change to Outline view and peruse just your document's headlines without the paragraph text. In Outline view, you get a better feeling for the manuscript as a whole. Likewise, when you're working on a document that's headed for the Web, it makes sense to view the page as it will appear in a browser. Other times, you may want to have two documents open on your screen at once (or on each of your two monitors, you lucky dog), to make it easy to cut and paste text from one to the other.

The key to working with Word's different view options is to match the view to the job at hand. Once you get used to switching views, you'll find lots of reasons to change your point of view. Find the tools you need on the View tab (Figure 1-7). To get there, click the View tab (Alt+W) on the ribbon (near the top of Word's window). The tab divides the view commands into four groups:

▸ Document Views. These commands change the big picture. For the most part, use these when you want to view a document in a dramatically different way: two pages side by side, Outline view, Web layout view, and so on.
▸ Show/Hide. The Show/Hide commands display and conceal Word tools like rulers and gridlines. These tools don't show when you print your document; they're just visual aids that help you when you're working in Word.
▸ Zoom. As you can guess, the Zoom tools let you choose between a close-up and a long shot of your document. Getting in close makes your words easier to read and helps prevent eyestrain. But zooming out makes scrolling faster and helps you keep your eye on the big picture.

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From the earliest days of personal computing, the watchword has been "save early, save often." There's nothing more frustrating than working half the day and then having the Great American Novel evapmissingmanualte into the digital ether because your power goes out. So, here are some tips to protect your work from disasters human-made and natural:

▸ Name and save your document shortly after you first create it. You'll see the steps to do so later in this section.
▸ Get in the habit of doing a quick save with Alt+F, S (think File Save) when you pause to think or get up to go to the kitchen for a snack. (Note for old-timers: Ctrl+S still works for a quick save too.)
▸ If you're leaving your computer for an extended period of time, save and close your document with Alt+F, C (think File Close).

It's the Microsoft Way to give you multiple ways to do most everything. Whether that's because the company's programmers believe in giving you lots of choices, or because they can't make up their minds about the best way to do something is a question best left to the philosophers. But the point is, you do have a choice. You don't have to memorize every keystroke, button, and command. Especially with saving, the important thing is to find a way you like and stick with it. The next section gives some ways you can save the document you're working on.

Ribbons, buttons, and menus are all well and good when you're doing something new or complicated. But when you know where you're going, a good keyboard shortcut can save time. Word 2007 has dozens of keyboard shortcuts. If you don't have your favorites memorized, use the Alt key to reveal them.

Press the Alt key, and you see small badges with letters and numbers pop up next to menus and buttons. These are your shortcuts. If you're looking for the keyboard shortcut to close your document, follow these steps:

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DESPITE ADVANCED FEATURES like grammar checking, indexing, and image editing, Word is still, at heart, a word processor. You probably spend most of your time entering text and massaging it into shape. Amidst all the slick graphics and gee-whiz automation, Word 2007 makes it faster and easier than ever for you to enter and edit your text. A quick read through this chapter will reveal timesaving techniques that'll help you spend less time hunting, pecking, and clicking, so you can move on to the important stuff—polishing your prose and sharing it with the world.

This chapter starts with a quick review of the basics—putting words on the page and moving around your document. You'll also learn how to cut, copy, paste, and generally put text exactly where you want it. To top it off, you'll explore the Find and Replace features and learn how to save keystrokes using Word's Quick Parts.

Whenever you're entering text into Word, the insertion point is where all the action takes place (Figure 2-1). It's that vertical, blinking bar that's a little taller than a capital letter. When you press a key, a letter appears at the insertion point, and the blinking bar moves a space to the right. To type in a different spot, just click somewhere in your text, and the insertion point moves to that location.

Figure 2-1: As you type, the characters appear at the insertion point. Sometimes people call the insertion point the "cursor," but the insertion point and the mouse cursor are actually two different things. You use the mouse cursor to choose commands from the ribbon, select text, and place the insertion point in your document. The cursor can roam all over the Word window, but the insertion point remains hard at work, blinking patiently, waiting for you to enter the next character.

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Whenever you're entering text into Word, the insertion point is where all the action takes place (Figure 2-1). It's that vertical, blinking bar that's a little taller than a capital letter. When you press a key, a letter appears at the insertion point, and the blinking bar moves a space to the right. To type in a different spot, just click somewhere in your text, and the insertion point moves to that location.

Figure 2-1: As you type, the characters appear at the insertion point. Sometimes people call the insertion point the "cursor," but the insertion point and the mouse cursor are actually two different things. You use the mouse cursor to choose commands from the ribbon, select text, and place the insertion point in your document. The cursor can roam all over the Word window, but the insertion point remains hard at work, blinking patiently, waiting for you to enter the next character.

Press Shift to type capitals or to enter the various punctuation marks you see above the numbers keys (!@#$*&^). When you want to type several words in uppercase letters, press the Caps Lock key. You don't have to keep holding it down. It works like a toggle. Press it once and you're in caps mode. Press it again and you're back to lowercase.

Most of the time, you type in insert mode. Put your cursor in the middle of a sentence, start typing, and Word inserts the letters you type at that point. Existing text scoots along to the right to make room.

In the other mode—overtype mode—every time you type a character, it writes over and erases the next one. Before Word 2007, most people stumbled upon overtype mode by accident. They'd click in the middle of a sentence and start typing—and the letters to the right of the cursor started to disappear! In those earlier versions of Word, pressing the Insert key threw you right into overtype mode. It was an easy mistake to make, since Insert is just above the much-used Delete key (on most keyboards).

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Even among the best writers, the first draft needs a lot of editing before it's ready for public viewing. You'll need to change words, delete boring parts, and move sentences (or even whole paragraphs) to reorganize your text.

In Word, as in most programs, you have to select something before you can do anything to it. Say you want to change the word "good" to "awesome": Select "good," and then type your new, improved adjective in its place. To delete or move a block of text, first select it, and then use the mouse, keyboard, or ribbon commands to do the deed. Since selection is such a fundamental editing skill, Word gives you many different and new ways to do it, including the Mini toolbar (see Figure 2-5). If you've been dragging your mouse around for the past 20 years, you're lagging behind. This section shows you some timesaving selection techniques—with and without the mouse.

Figure 2-5: As you make selections, you'll notice the Mini Toolbar pops up occasionally. It's faint at first, but when you move the mouse toward the toolbar, it comes into focus, giving you easy access to the most often used formatting commands, including the format painter.

The mouse is an easy, visual, intuitive way to make selections. It's the first way most people learn, and besides, it's right there on your desktop. Here's how to select various document parts using your mouse:

▸ Select individual characters. Click to place the insertion point at the beginning of the text you want to select. Press and hold the left mouse button and drag over the characters. As you drag, the characters you select are highlighted to indicate they're part of the selection (Figure 2-6).

Word doesn't care if you move forward or backward as you select text. It simply uses the point where you click as either the beginning or the ending point of the selection. These examples describe how to select text moving forward, but most of the techniques, including the keyboard techniques, work going backward too. Don't be afraid to experiment. Before you know it, you'll be proficient selecting text with both the mouse and the keyboard.

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Using that nice blue scrollbar on the right side of your document is the most obvious way to navigate your document. And if your mouse has a wheel on it, then using it to scroll is pretty speedy too. But when your document's more than a few pages long, trying to scroll to the exact point you're looking for is just plain inefficient.

Word's most powerful ways of boogieing around your document don't involve scrolling at all. You can use the keyboard to hop from place to place. For really long documents, as with long journeys, the best way to get around is by using landmarks. For example, you can check all the graphics in a document by jumping directly from one to the next. Or you can go directly to a specific heading in a 400-page business report by telling Word to find it for you. You can even create your own landmarks using Word's bookmarking feature. Word's got the tools, and this section tells you how to use 'em.

If you're working with a large document, then Word has some other great ways to find your way around. You can use Outline view (View → Documents View → Outline) to easily navigate between chapter and section headings. The Document Map (View → Documents View → Document Map) shows a similar view in the bar along the left side of your document. If your pages include distinctive graphics, then the Thumbnail View (View → Show/Hide → Thumbnails) can help you find the spot you want by eye.

You've heard it before: You lose time every time you take your hands off the keyboard to fumble for the mouse. For short jaunts especially, get in the habit of using these keyboard commands to move the insertion point:

▸ Move left or right. Left/right arrow keys.
▸ Move to the beginning or the end of a line. Home/End. (On most keyboards, these keys are just above the arrow keys. On most laptops, the Home and End keys are either along the right side or in the top-right corner.)

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When it comes time to edit your text and shape it into a masterpiece of communication, the job is all about cutting, copying, and pasting. Compared to actually using scissors and paste (which is what writers and editors did in the pre-PC era), Word makes manipulating text almost effortless. You're free to experiment, moving words, sentences, and paragraphs around until you've got everything just right.

The Go To, Find, and Replace dialog boxes are actually three different tabs in the same window. You either open the dialog box directly to one of the tabs, or, if it's already open, then just click a tab at the top of the box. As usual, Microsoft provides many ways to open this particular box:

Home → Editing → Find. Opens the Find tab.
Home → Editing → Replace. Opens the Replace tab.
Home → Editing → Go To. Opens the Go To tab.
Browse Settings button. Click Browse Settings (the tiny circle in the window's lower-right corner, as shown in Figure 2-8), and then click the Go To (arrow) or Find (binoculars).
Ctrl+F. Opens the Find tab.
Ctrl+H. Opens the Replace tab.
Ctrl+G or F5. Opens the Go To tab.
Double-click Status bar. Double-clicking the status bar in the lower-left corner also opens the Go To tab.

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Scanning every word of your 400-page novel to find the exact spot where you first mentioned Madame DeFarge is drudgery with a capital D. Fortunately, Word performs this task quickly and without whining or demanding overtime pay. What's more, it's just as easy to find and then replace text. Suppose you decide to change the name of the character from Madame DeFarge to Madame de Stael. Simple—here's how to do a Find and Replace:

Open the Find and Replace dialog box (Figure 2-20 ). For example, press Ctrl+H.

You have many ways to open the Find and Replace dialog box, as explained in the box. If your hands are on the keyboard, then Ctrl+H is the fastest.

When the dialog box opens, you see tabs at the top for each of the panels: Find, Replace, and Go To. The controls and options under the Find and Replace tabs are nearly identical. The main difference is that the Replace tab includes two text boxes—"Replace with" as well as "Find what."

Figure 2-20: Initially, the Replace box is pretty simple, but when you click More, you see a number of options for fine-tuning your search. (And the More button turns into a Less button, as shown here.) The box explains all the Search options in detail.
In the "Find what" box, type the text you want to find, and, in the "Replace with" box, type the replacement text.

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Suppose your company has an extremely long name and an even longer address (complete with nine-digit Zip code). Now say you type in the name and address about three times an hour. Wouldn't it be great to just type address and have Word fill in the whole shebang? That's exactly the kind of magic you can do with Word 2007's Quick Parts feature. You can have Word memorize whole chunks of text, and then spit them back out when you type an abbreviation word followed by the F3 key.

Quick Parts evolved from the AutoText feature found in earlier versions of Word. AutoText was one of the program's most overlooked and underused features. Quick Parts work like this: You store text, graphics, or anything else you've created in Word in a Quick Part and give it a name, preferably something short and memorable. When you want to retrieve the Quick Part, simply type that name, and then press F3. Word replaces the name with the entire contents of the Quick Part. Few keystrokes, mucho text.

Here are step-by-step instructions for creating a new Quick Part:

Select the text you want to save as a Quick Part.

Your selection can include text, pictures, and other objects that Office recognizes. There's virtually no size limit. You can even use an entire document as a Quick Part (like a rejection letter that you send out every day).
Use Alt+F3 to open the Create New Building Block dialog box (Figure 2-21).

The Alt+F3 keyboard shortcut's the quickest route to creating a new Quick Part Building Block. (And, after all, speed's the name of the Quick Part game.) You see six boxes in the Create New Building Block dialog box, but the first one, Name, is the most important.

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FORMATTING IS THE FINE ART of making your documents effective and attractive. Good formatting distinguishes different parts of your text and helps your readers take in your message. You can apply formatting to just about every element of your document, from a single character to entire paragraphs. Body text needs to be readable and easy on the eyes. Headings should be big and bold, and they should also be consistent throughout your document. Important words need to resonate with emphasis. Quotes and references should be set off from the other text.

This chapter starts with the basics: how to format individual characters and words—selecting fonts and making characters bold, italicized, underlined, or capitalized. You learn how to format paragraphs with indents and spacing, and how to control the way Word breaks up the words in a line and the lines in a paragraph. Finally, you find out how to copy and reuse formatting with tools like the Format Painter and style sets.

Word deals with formatting on three levels encompassing small and specific on up to big and broad—through characters, paragraphs, and sections. You apply different types of formatting to each of these parts. Character formatting includes selecting a font, a font size, bold or italics, and so on. At the paragraph level, you apply indents, bullets, and line spacing. For each section of your document (even if there's only one), you set the page size, orientation, and margins, as described in the previous chapter. Sometimes it helps to think of the parts of a document as Russian nesting dolls: Characters go inside paragraphs, which go inside sections, which fit inside your document.

Each type of formatting has its own dialog box, giving you access to all possible settings. You can also apply most types of formatting via the ribbon, the mini-toolbar, or the keyboard shortcut.

▸ Characters. Use the Font dialog box (Alt+H, FN) to format characters. Letters, numbers, and punctuation marks are all printable characters and, as such, you can format them. Once you select a character or a group of characters, you can apply any of the formatting commands on the Home tab's Font group (Alt+H). You can choose a font and a size for any character in your document. You can make characters bold, underlined, superscript, or change them to just about any color of the rainbow.

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Word deals with formatting on three levels encompassing small and specific on up to big and broad—through characters, paragraphs, and sections. You apply different types of formatting to each of these parts. Character formatting includes selecting a font, a font size, bold or italics, and so on. At the paragraph level, you apply indents, bullets, and line spacing. For each section of your document (even if there's only one), you set the page size, orientation, and margins, as described in the previous chapter. Sometimes it helps to think of the parts of a document as Russian nesting dolls: Characters go inside paragraphs, which go inside sections, which fit inside your document.

Each type of formatting has its own dialog box, giving you access to all possible settings. You can also apply most types of formatting via the ribbon, the mini-toolbar, or the keyboard shortcut.

▸ Characters. Use the Font dialog box (Alt+H, FN) to format characters. Letters, numbers, and punctuation marks are all printable characters and, as such, you can format them. Once you select a character or a group of characters, you can apply any of the formatting commands on the Home tab's Font group (Alt+H). You can choose a font and a size for any character in your document. You can make characters bold, underlined, superscript, or change them to just about any color of the rainbow.

Prior to the use of computers, groups of letters, numbers, and punctuation of a certain style, such as Helvetica or Bodoni, were called typefaces. The term font was more specific, referring to variations within a typeface such as bold, narrow, or italic. Today, the terms are interchangeable. Word uses the term font, probably because it's shorter and therefore easier to fit into a dialog box.
▸ Paragraphs. Use the Paragraph dialog box (Alt+H, PG) to format paragraphs. You can set formatting for text alignment, indents, line spacing, line breaks, and paragraph breaks. You don't have to select a paragraph to format it; just click to place the insertion point within a paragraph. Because characters are part of paragraphs (remember those Russian nesting dolls), every paragraph includes a basic font description. When you select characters within a paragraph and change the font settings, you override the basic font description in the paragraph's style.

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Every character in your document is formatted. The formatting describes the typeface, the size of the character, the color, and whether or not the character is underlined, bold, or capitalized. It's easy to change the formatting, and Word gives you quite a few different ways to do it. The easiest and most visual way is with the ribbon (Home → Font). You can further fine-tune the font formatting using the Font dialog box (Alt+H, FN).

For quick formatting, you may not need to go any further than the mini-toolbar that pops up when you select text for formatting. And when you get really good, you can do most of your formatting with keyboard shortcuts, never even slowing down long enough to reach for the mouse.

Whichever method you use, formatting is a two-step process. First, tell Word which text you want to format by selecting it. Then format away. Or, you can set up your formatting options first, and then begin to type. Your letters and words will be beautifully formatted from the get-go.

Since character formatting is one of the most often used Word features, Microsoft put the most popular settings right on the Home tab. If you don't see what you're looking for there, then you must open the Font dialog box. The good thing about the dialog box is that it puts all your character formatting options in one place so you can quickly make multiple changes. It's one-stop shopping if you want to change the typeface and the size, and add that pink double-underline.

Here are the steps:

Select a group of characters, as shown in Figure 3-1 .

You can use any of the selection methods described in Chapter 2. You can drag to select a single character. You can double-click to select a word. Or you can move the mouse cursor to the left side of a paragraph, and then double-click to select the whole paragraph.

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Formatting a paragraph usually entails changing its shape. You may be squeezing it in with indents or stretching it out with additional line spacing. Other kinds of formatting change a paragraph's very nature, like adding a border or making it part of a numbered or bulleted list. The Paragraph formatting group (Home → Paragraph) is right next door to the Font group (Figure 3-6). You don't need to select text to format a paragraph; just make sure the insertion point is in the paragraph you want to format. However, if you want to format several paragraphs at once, select them all before you apply a command.

Figure 3-6: Paragraph formatting commands are in the Home → Paragraph group. Left to right, from the top, you find buttons to add bullets and numbers, apply indents, sort paragraphs, show the paragraph mark, align paragraphs, adjust line spacing, change the background color, and add borders.

It's easy to apply alignment to text. With your insertion point in the paragraph you want to change, click one of the alignment buttons in the Paragraph group on the Home Tab. For example, Home → Paragraph → Left sets the current paragraph's alignment. As shown in Figure 3-7, you have four choices when it comes to aligning your paragraphs:

▸ Left (Alt+H, AL). Aligns the lines in the paragraph flush on the left side and ragged on the right. Left alignment is standard for letters, reports, and many business documents.
▸ Centered (Alt+H, AC). Centers each line in the paragraph, leaving both left and right margins ragged. This setting is appropriate for headings and short chunks of text, as in invitations and advertisements. Avoid using centered text for long paragraphs, since it's hard for readers' eyes to track from the end of one line to the beginning of the next when the left margin is uneven.

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Bullets and numbers add impact and help organize information. The bullets in the previous section call attention to the Line and Page Breaks commands and show that the commands are related to each other. Numbered paragraphs send a different signal, implying that the items listed are sequential or have a hierarchy. This book uses numbered paragraphs for step-by-step instructions. Meeting minutes are usually numbered, both as a point of reference and to indicate the order of the meeting's events.

Like the other paragraph formatting options, you don't have to select a paragraph to format it. It's enough just to have the insertion point in the paragraph. When using bullets or numbers, you usually want to format more than one paragraph. To do that, make a selection, and then click the bullet or number button.

Section 3.4.1.1: Bulleted paragraphs

It's easy to turn an ordinary paragraph into a bulleted paragraph—Word does all the heavy lifting for you. You may spend more time choosing a bullet style than applying it.

Here's how to create a bulleted list:

Go to Home → Paragraph, and then click the triangle next to the Bullet button to open the Bullets menu (or press Alt+H, U).

At the top of the menu (Figure 3-11), you see bullet styles that you used recently. In the middle, you see your Bullet Library. The bottom section shows bullet styles that have already been used in the document. At the very bottom are two commands for customizing bullets.
On the Bullets menu, click to choose a bullet style.

When you click a bullet to apply that style to the paragraph, a couple of things happen. Word adds the bullet and automatically formats the paragraph with a hanging indent (Section 3.3.3), so that the first line of the paragraph extends farther to the left than the other lines. The bullet appears in this overhang, calling attention to the bullet and setting off the paragraph from the other body text.

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The lowly Tab key contains more power than you may think. Sure, you can use the Tab key to scoot the insertion point across the page in half-inch increments. But Word's tab tool is capable of much loftier feats: You can use it to design a dinner menu, create a playbill, or develop a series of consistently formatted reports.

Tab stops are all about precision alignment, giving you control over the way you present text and numbers to your readers. For example, on your dinner menu you can use tab leaders (dotted lines like the ones in this book's table of contents) so that your reader's eye tracks from Wild Salmon to the exceptionally reasonable price you're asking. Once you have settings you like, you can save and reuse them. (How's that for efficiency?)

Before you start working with tabs, you need to know a few basic terms:

▸ Tabs. Technically considered tab characters, tabs are hidden formatting characters, similar to space characters. Tabs are embedded in your document's text.
▸ Tab stops. These paragraph settings define the position and characteristics of tabs in your document. Think of tab stops as definitions, describing your tabs. To define them, you use Word tools, like the Ruler or the Tabs dialog box.
▸ Tab key. The key on your computer keyboard that inserts tabs into your text.

Press the Tab key, and Word inserts a tab in the text at that point. The tab character makes the insertion point jump left to right and stop at the first tab stop it reaches. If you haven't set any new tab stops, Word uses the built-in set of tab stops—one every half inch across the width—that every new, blank document starts out with.

Tab stop settings apply to paragraphs. If a paragraph has several lines, the tab stops are the same for all the lines within that paragraph. If you haven't deliberately set tab stops, Word provides built-in tab stops at half-inch intervals. These stops are left tab stops, meaning the text aligns on the left side. You can see all tab stops on the horizontal ruler—they show as small vertical tick marks in the gray area below the number scale (Figure 3-15).

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If you're visually oriented, you may prefer the ruler for futzing with tab stops, page margins, and indents. Two rulers are available—horizontal and vertical. The horizontal ruler appears at the top of the page, giving you quick access to your tab, indent, and margin settings. To make the rulers visible, press Alt+W, R, or click the View Ruler button at the top of the right-hand scroll bar (Figure 3-18).

Figure 3-18: Word's ruler provides lots of information about the formatting of the current paragraph, that is, the paragraph that contains the insertion point. Use the button just above the scroll bar for a quick way to show and hide your ruler.

The ruler marks off your page in the measuring units of your choice. The factory setting uses inches, but if you want to make changes, you can do that in Word Options. Go to Office button → Word Options → Advanced. Scroll down to the group under Display, and then change the drop-down menu labeled "Show measurements in units of" to your preferred units of measurement.

In Figure 3-18, the ruler measures the page in inches. The grayed areas at both ends of the ruler indicate the page margins. The numbers on the ruler mark the distance from the left margin in both directions, left and right. Note the number 1, at the left edge of the page in Figure 3-18.

Section 3.6.1.1: Setting tab stops

Word's every-half-inch tab stops can work for many of your documents, but sooner or later, you may need to put a tab stop in a different place or change its style. No problem—it's easy enough to do with the ruler.

Setting a new tab stop is a two-step process:

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Whether it's a special heading or a paragraph of text, formatting a paragraph just the way you want it is a lot of work. Once you have the margins, indents, and tabs in place, and you've got the font style and size set, you've invested a chunk of time in the project. Fortunately, you can capitalize on that investment. The Format Painter works like magic. You can use it to copy the formatting of a word, heading, or paragraph onto something else. You don't have to worry about any of the formatting details. You don't even need to know how something is formatted, so long as you like the way it looks.

Here's how it works:

Select the character or paragraph with the formatting that you want to copy.

You can copy and paint either the character or the paragraph formatting. If you want to copy just text formatting (font, size, text color, and so on), select a few letters or a word with that formatting, not the whole paragraph. Selecting an entire paragraph, complete with the paragraph mark at the end, copies both the character formatting and the paragraph formatting. If you don't select anything, the Format Painter uses the formatting from the current paragraph, so to copy paragraph formatting alone (for example, tabs and indents), just click anywhere in the paragraph.
Go to Home → Clipboard and click the Format Painter button, or just press Alt+H, FP.

Your cursor acquires a tiny paintbrush icon. If you have only one quick change to make, just click the Format Painter once. However, if you want to copy the same formatting to several different locations, double-click the Format Painter. When you double-click, the button stays locked down, indicating that it will stay on and let you paint multiple times until you're ready to stop.
Drag the Format Painter over the text or paragraph that you want to change

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Like the Format Painter, Word's styles are great time-savers because they let you apply a whole bunch of formatting commands in one fell swoop. Unlike Format Painter, Word's styles are permanent repositories of formatting information that you can always apply with one click. So, if you've discovered or created the perfect style (formatting) for a heading, you can apply that same style to headings today, tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow.

Microsoft provides sets of predesigned Quick Styles. These sets include a Normal style for body text and a number of Heading styles. You can also find a variety of styles for lists, quotes, references, and for paragraphs or text that deserve special emphasis. With a click of your mouse, you can apply any one of these styles and make dramatic changes to your document (Figure 3-21 ).

Figure 3-21: This attractive page uses four Quick Styles: Book Title style centers the text and sets the font to 30-point Constantia with colored borders above and below. Heading 1 for the chapter heading uses a different color and generous paragraph spacing. The Heading 2 spec uses a complementary color and closer paragraph spacing. Finally, the body text uses the Normal style, which provides, among other things, an indent for the first line of each paragraph.

Some styles define character formatting, such as font, font size, font style, and special effects such as underlining or strikethrough. Other styles define both character formatting and paragraph formatting. Paragraph formatting includes things like paragraph alignment, line spacing, bullets, numbering, indents, and tab settings.

It's easy to preview and apply a style to your text. The action takes place in the Styles group on the Home tab. Follow these steps:

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When you apply a style to a paragraph of text, you do more than just change its formatting. In essence, you've attached that style to the paragraph. If you make changes to that style later, the paragraph reflects those changes. Imagine that you have a style called Heading 1 that centers the headings on the page. You've used this style repeatedly throughout your 400-page novel about the French Revolution. Say, you decide your novel would look better with that heading aligned on the left margin rather than centered. Instead of making the change to each individual heading, you edit the Heading 1 style. When you change the style definition, all your headings that are based on the Heading 1 style change to match.

Here are the steps to modifying a style. In this example, you give the Heading 1 style left alignment:

Go to Home → Styles and click the Styles dialog box launcher (Figure 3-23).

In the Styles box, you can click to apply any one of the styles to your current selection or paragraph. Even when the Styles box is open, you can click within your text to move the insertion point to a different paragraph. And you can use the scroll bar, the PageUP and PageDN keys, or any other method to navigate through your document.

When you hold your cursor over a style, a screen tip pops up showing you details. Turn on the Show Preview checkbox at bottom to see a more visual representation of each of the styles.

Figure 3-23: Open the Style dialog box to see a complete list of all available styles. On the right side, a paragraph mark shows that a style includes paragraph formatting. The lowercase "a" shows that the style includes character formatting. Click the down arrow button to open a menu where you can modify the style definition.

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A style set is a collection of styles. Microsoft includes several predesigned style sets with Word, with names like Classic, Distinctive, Elegant, Formal, and Modern. Go to Home → Styles → Change Styles (or press Alt+H, FQ) to see them listed under the Change Styles button (Figure 3-25). Each of Word's predesigned style sets includes a Normal style, several heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on), and other paragraph and character styles (like Title, Subtitle, Intense, Strong, and Reference). Even though a style has the same name in different sets—like Heading 1—the formatting is likely to be quite different. So when you change

Table of Contents

Section 3.4.1.1: Bulleted paragraphs

Section 3.6.1.1: Setting tab stops