You probably use Microsoft Word now or may have to use it in the future. It is easily the most popular word processor for Windows, so learning some useful Microsoft Word tips to really take advantage of can help improve your productivity and speed up your work.
Regardless of whether you are new to Microsoft Word or have been using it for years, we hope that at least some of the tips mentioned below will be useful to you.
Paste without formatting
If you need to copy something from somewhere else, but don’t want the font to change from what you are using in the Word document, copy it as usual, but press Ctrl + Shift + V. This will ensure that the content is pasted, but any formatting, such as color, size, and font of the text, will not be included.
Clear formatting
If you want to clear the formatting of a specific part of the document, simply highlight that area AND click on the Clear Formatting icon. The icon will look like a small eraser next to the letter A.
If you want to clear formatting for everything in your document, press Ctrl + A to highlight everything in the document and then click the clear formatting icon.
Quickly Highlight an Area of Text
Instead of clicking and dragging to highlight an area of text in Microsoft Word, you can click once to place the text cursor at the beginning of the area you would like to highlight, hold down the slider, then click at the end of the area you would like to highlight.
Quickly Replace Multiple Errors
Have you just finished a long document and just noticed that you made a small mistake for a word, for example, writing land mark instead of landmark? You can fix that in a few seconds using find and replace.
First, press Ctrl + F and the find and replace tool will open. Next, click replace, then type in the word or phrase you want to replace. After, type the content that you would like to be replaced with.
Copy and create lists quickly
Let’s say you need to go through a document and choose certain words/phrases and create a list of them.
Instead of going back and forth, typing each item in the list each time you see a word, you can simply highlight each word and press CTRL + F3. You can do this several time until you find each word / phrase.
When you are finished, go to the area of the document you want the list to be created and press Ctrl + SHIFT + F3 to paste all the highlighted areas you have just copied.
As a final step, you can highlight the content and use the bullets or numbering tools on the toolbar to turn the words / phrases into a more ordered list.
Remove the ribbon from the toolbar
If you want to write without distraction, you can remove the ribbon from the toolbar that sits at the top of the document by pressing Ctrl + F1. If you need it back at any time, press Ctrl + F1 again to bring it back into view.
Deleting words with one key
Need to delete a large chunk of text? Instead of pressing the backspace bar, you can hold down CTRL and then press BACKspace.
This will delete a word every time you press the backspace button, instead of just one character. Hold the backspace button and the ctrl button together to delete chunks of text at lightning speed.
Use “Tell me what you want to do
If you are trying to find a function in Microsoft Word, but are having trouble navigating the menus or can’t remember the shortcut, click on the icon. ‘Tell me what to do’ shortcut at the top of the toolbar strip.
From here, you can type the action you would like to perform and you will get contextual answers to take advantage of. For example, typing ‘create a table will give you some options to create a table from within your Word document.
This tool is something that many old school Word users may not even know exists, but it is incredibly useful.
Search for a word quickly
If you are editing a Word document but need context, you can use the Smart Lookup tool. Simply highlight a word, right click, and click Smart Lookup.
This will open a small panel that contains information related to the word. It saves you moving to your browser and performing a search, but it is just as powerful.
Disable Spell-checking and Grammar-checking
To disable spell and grammar checking in Word for just one document, click Send, then Options, then click checking. You should then check the two options for hiding spelling and grammar errors in the document you are currently writing in.
Create your own AutoCorrect settings
Are there some words that you cannot spell right? Or are there long words or sentences that you write too often? You can use custom AutoCorrect settings to make your life much easier.
Just click Send, then Options, then click Verification. After that, click AutoCorrect Options. You can then add your own custom words and then the correction you want replaced. Custom AutoCorrect can be a great way to increase your productivity.
Not only can you use it to adjust any common personal spelling mistakes, but you can use it to turn quick abbreviations into long words or sentences to save time.
Change the color of the page for easier viewing
It has become the universal standard for the color of a text document to be bright white. Sometimes this can become a real strain on the eyes. To change the page color to sepia, which has a darker yellow tone, click on the ‘tell me what to do’ box, then type ‘change page color’.
In the results, click on Page Color and you will have several options to choose from, including Sepia, which is much easier on the eyes.
