MS Word Basics

MS Word Basics

• The title bar in MS Word displays the name of the active document.
• The Quick Access Toolbar is located at the left end of the title bar by default.
• The default Quick Access Toolbar consists of Save, Undo, and Redo buttons.
• Clicking any tab of the Ribbon (other than the File tab) displays a set of commands.
• The Backstage view contains commands related to Managing the program and files.
• Clicking the File tab of the Ribbon displays the Backstage view.
• To display the Backstage view, click the File tab.
• To display the commands of any page of the Backstage view, click the page tab in the left pane.

Ribbon and Tabs

• The active tab, by default, is the Home tab.
• Buttons on each tab are organized into named groups.
• Commands that do not appear on the ribbon tabs are available in a dialog box or task pane.
• Commands that do not appear on the ribbon tabs can be displayed by clicking the dialog box launcher.
• The dialog box launcher is located at the lower-right corner of the group.
• To hide the commands of the ribbon without hiding tab names, click the Minimize The Ribbon button.
• When the ribbon is minimized, clicking a tab name displays the commands of that tab.

Status Bar

• The status bar is located at the bottom of the program window.
• The status bar displays information about the current file.
• The View Shortcuts toolbar, Zoom button, and Zoom slider are located at the right end of the status bar.
• The Zoom button, Zoom slider, and View Shortcuts toolbar provide convenient methods for adjusting the display of file content.
• To change the file content view, click the buttons on the View Shortcuts toolbar.
• To change the file content magnification, click the Zoom button or adjust the Zoom slider.
• Right-clicking the status bar displays the Customize Status Bar menu.

Customizing MS Word

• To display the Word Options dialog box, click File tab and then Options.
• To display the Customize Ribbon page, click File tab, Options, and then Customize Ribbon.
• To customize the ribbon, display the Customize Ribbon page of Word Options dialog box.
• To customize the Quick Access Toolbar, click Quick Access Toolbar in the left pane of Word Options dialog box.
• To reset the customized ribbon to its default configuration, click the Reset button on the Customize Ribbon page of Word Options dialog box.

Creating and Saving Files

• To create a new file from the New page of the Backstage view, click the File tab, and then New.
• The New page contains sets of formats that have been saved as templates.
• To create a new document, which contains no content, click Blank document on the New page.
• By default, the Save As dialog box displays the contents of the Documents library.
• To save the file in a folder other than the one shown in the Address bar of the Save As dialog box, click the arrow in the Address bar or locations in the navigation pane.
• To save the file in a format other than the one shown in the Save As Type box, click the Save As Type arrow.

Saving Files

• After saving a file for the first time, subsequent changes can be saved by clicking the Save button or pressing Ctrl+S key.
• If the user clicks the Save button, the file overwrites the previous version.
• If the user wants to keep both the new version and the previous version, they should click Save As in the Backstage view.

Opening Files

• Double-clicking the icon of an existing file or document opens it.
• The user can open an existing document from the Open page of the Backstage view.
• To display the Open page, click Open in the left pane of the Backstage view.

Recent Documents

• Documents which the user has recently worked on are listed in the Recent page of the Backstage view.
• To display the Recent page, click Recent in the left pane of the Backstage view.
• If the document which you have worked on is not listed in the Recent page, click Open in the left pane of the Backstage view.
• To open a document in the Open dialog box, click its file name and then click the Open button in the lower-right corner of the dialog box.

Instructions for Using Microsoft Word

• To open a document in the Open dialog box, double-click the file name.
• If more than one document is open, closing the active document does not exit the Word program.
• If only one document is open, closing the active document exits the Word program.
• To close the active document without exiting the program, click Close in the Backstage view.

Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word

• To move the cursor one character to the left, use the Left Arrow Key.
• To move the cursor one character to the right, use the Right Arrow Key.
• To move the cursor one line down, use the Down Arrow Key.
• To move the cursor one line up, use the Up Arrow Key.
• To move the cursor one word to the left, use Ctrl+Left Arrow Key.
• To move the cursor one word to the right, use the Ctrl+Right Arrow Key.
• To move the cursor to the beginning of the current line, use the Home Key.
• To move the cursor to the end of the current line, use the End Key.
• To move the cursor to the beginning of the document, use the Ctrl+Home.
• To move the cursor to the end of the document, use the Ctrl+End.
• To move the cursor to the beginning of the previous page, use the Ctrl+Page Up.
• To move the cursor to the end of the previous page, use the Ctrl+Page Down.
• To move the cursor one screen up, use the Page Up.
• To move the cursor one screen down, use the Page Down.

Test your knowledge of basic MS Word features, including the title bar, Quick Access Toolbar, and Ribbon commands. Learn more about using MS Word efficiently.