In the Quick Access Toolbar to the left of the Title Bar, you will find the Save button (Ctrl+S), wherein you can save the document in the desired folder; the Undo Typing button (Ctrl+Z); the Repeat Typing button (Ctrl+Y); and the Customize Quick Access Toolbar, wherein you have the various commands as shown in the image below.

In the Ribbon Display Options, it is possible to Auto-hide the ribbon, show the ribbon tabs only or show the tabs and commands all the time. Refer to the image below.

Below the Title Bar, you will see what is called the Ribbon which consists of various tabs such as File, Home, Insert, Design, Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View, Help, Search. Now let us go through every Tab and its commands.

2] Home

The Home tab is the default tab in Microsoft Word. This tab comprises of features related to the clipboard, font, paragraph, styles, and editing.

In the Clipboard section, you will find commands such as copy, cut and paste. Next, they have the Font section. Here you can change the font and the font size for your text, change the case, apply bold or italic formatting, underline, change the font color and highlight text and also add various text effects and typography. Go ahead and explore all the different options to make your text look great and innovative!

The Paragraph section includes the alignment options where you can choose to align your text in the center, left, right or justify it (that is, evenly distribute the text between the margins).

You can add or remove borders, increase or decrease indent, adjust the line and paragraph spacing, and also add bullets and numbers from the bullets and numbering libraries.

You can also create a multilevel list to organize items or create an outline.

From the Styles section, you can select any style of your choice to change the way your document looks. In the Editing section, you can find text or any content in the document and also replace a specific word or text with something else.

3] Insert

The next tab is the Insert tab.

You can add a stylish cover page from the numerous styles available to make your document look more professional and also add a blank page from the Pages section. Another important feature is inserting a table, a picture from your picture gallery, an online picture from the web, shapes, 3D models, charts, SmartArt and screenshots from the Tables and the Illustrations section. Refer to the images below for guidance.

You can insert Tables.

You can insert  Shapes.

You can insert SmartArt – and more!

In the Header & Footer section, you can add a built-in header and a footer or from online sources. You can also add page numbers to your document.

Similarly, there are a lot of other features and commands in the Add-ins, Media, Links, Comments, Text and Symbols sections.

4] Design

The Design tab comprises of commands related to Document Formatting and Page Background. To make your document look more consistent and classy, choose the right theme of your liking from the various options available. Additional features include colors, fonts, effects, and paragraph spacing.

If you wish to go for a splash of color for the document background, you can change the page color as well, add Watermark and page borders.

5] Layout

In this tab, in the Page Setup section, you can adjust margins for the entire document or for a particular section; and also customize it. You can change the Page Orientation to Landscape or Portrait; choose the page size for your document, and add or remove columns.

You can also decide the Size for the document.

Find the settings to increase or decrease the Indent and Spacing in the Paragraph section.

Other features related to the placement of text and pictures, grouping multiple images and rotation options will be found in the Arrange section.

6] References

In the References tab, you will find different commands related to the table of contents, footnotes, research, citations and bibliography, captions, index and table of authorities.

7] Mailings

Here, you will find settings that will help you to create envelopes and labels, start the mail merge wherein you can send it to multiple recipients, write and insert fields, preview results and finish mail merge.

8] Review

The Review tab includes various functions related to proofing, speech, accessibility, language, comments, tracking, changes, compare, protect and ink. Out of all these, the Spelling and Grammar function (F7) is of utmost importance. Do check for spelling and grammatical errors after you are done writing your document.

9] View

In the View tab, you can change the views such as Read Mode, Print Layout, Web Layout, etc. Feel free to explore the additional features from the immersive, page movement, show, zoom, window, macros, and SharePoint sections.

10] Help

In the Help tab, you can contact an office support agent and deliver feedback.

11] Search

In the Search tab, you can type any feature that you are looking for and get help.

12] File

In the File tab, you can save the document, print and share the document, and also publish it.

In this post, I have tried to cover all the basic and useful features and functions of Microsoft Word.

This is my first blog post and I hope it was helpful to you. Your suggestions are most welcome.

Do try out all these features in order to make your MS Word document absolutely presentable and perfect!

Next, you might want to take a look at their Microsoft Word Tips And Tricks post.

Normally, they select a character, a word, a sentence, or a paragraph. All these selections are horizontal selections. Sometimes, you may need to select vertically. For example, if your text has numbers in the beginning, you may want to select only the numbers to delete them in one go (see figure).

To select text horizontally, press ALT and click to drag and make a selection. Remember to release ALT key before releasing the mouse else it will open the Research dialog. Check out the different uses of vertical selections and let us know what all you did with this feature.

Read: Best Word Online tips and tricks

2. Default Line Spacing

The default line spacing in Microsoft Word is 1.15 against 1 in Microsoft Word 2003. Microsoft changed the line spacing to make your text more readable. If you want the default line spacing as 1, follow this procedure:

1. While on the Home tab, right-click on the Normal quick style button and select Modify
2. In the Format list that appears, select Paragraph
3. Under Spacing, change the line spacing from 1.15 to 1
4. Click OK
5. Check the box against “New documents based on this template.”
6. Click OK

3. Changing The Default Save Location

By default, MS Word opens Documents folder when you press CTRL+S for the first time. If you think this is irritating you, you can change the default file location to some other place where you normally store your documents.

1. Click on File
2. Click on Options
3. Click Advanced in the left side of the window that appears
4. In the right part of the window, scroll down to the button that says “File Locations”
5. Select Documents and click on Modify
6. In the Save File dialog box that appears, enter or select the new path and click OK to close the Save File dialog box.
7. Click OK to close the window.

Read: Best Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks for Android

4. Change Default Font

The default font for new documents in MS Word is Calibri. Though the font is good for online viewing, it creates problems when printing. You may be using Times New Roman or Arial for print jobs. One method is to change the font manually each time after you have typed the document. But then, it would involve formatting the document again. Another method is to change the default font.

1. Right-click on the Normal quick style button on Home tab.
2. Click Modify
3. In the dialog box that appears, click on Format… to open the drop-down menu and select Font
4. In the Font dialog box, select the font you wish to use with every document.
5. Make any other changes you wish such as font size etc
6. Click OK
7. Click to select “New documents based on this template”
8. Click OK to close the Modify dialog box.

5. Move Rows Of Text In Table

Sometimes when you are working on the table, you may want to move one or more rows in the table up or down without having to change the table formatting. One method is copy-pasting but that risks formatting.

Another method is using ALT+SHIFT+UP arrow key to move an entire row up. Similarly, to move the entire row down, use ALT+SHIFT+DN arrow key. Note that you have to select the row before you can move it using the ALT+SHIFT+Arrow keys. This method makes sure the formatting is not disturbed.

6. Quickly Change Line Spacing

Sometimes need arises that you have to change line spacing among different paragraphs. Here are the shortcut keys:

CTRL + 1 –> Change line spacing to 1

CTRL + 2 –> Change line spacing to 2

CTRL + 5 –> Change line spacing to 1.5

Note that you need to place the cursor on the paragraph that needs to be styled. You need not select the paragraph.

7. Quickly Adding Borders to Paragraphs

If you wish to add borders to some paragraphs, you can use the Borders and Shading dialog box. However, if your need is to add the bottom border to text/paragraph, you can do it by adding three special characters and hitting Enter.

Press – (hyphen) three times and press Enter to draw an underline border of 3/4 points

Press _ (underscore) three times and press Enter to draw an underline border of 1.5 points

Press ~ (tilde) three times and press Enter to draw a zigzag underline border

Press * (asterisk) three times and press Enter to draw a dotted underline border

Press = (equal to) three times and press Enter to draw a double underline border

8. Find Special Formatting

You can find text that is specially formatted. For example, you can find highlighted text or text whose font is Times New Roman. You can also search for bold text or italics. There are many more options when you use the Find option.

1. Press CTRL+F to open the Find pane. In Word it appears to the left side of the window.
2. Click on the down-facing triangle next to the magnifying glass and click on Advanced Find…
3. In the Find dialog box that appears, click on More.
4. You can see plenty of options under Format.
5. When you select anything, it appears under the “Find What” textbox. When you click, Find Next without entering anything in the “Find What” text box, it searches for the format you have selected. For example, you can select Font and in the Font dialog box, select a font and its properties (bold, italics, etc.).

9. Merging Formatting When Pasting Across Documents

When you copy anything from another document and paste it in the current document, you will want the copied text to match the formatting of the current document. While you can manually format each time you copy text from other documents to the current one, you can also set the default paste to merge formatting so that the text copied from other sources acquires the formatting of the current document.

1. To set the default formatting, click on the down-facing triangle below Paste on Home tab
2. Click Set Default Paste
3. In the window that appears, Select Merge Destinations in 1] When Pasting in the same Document and 2] When Pasting between Documents.
4. Click OK to close the window

10. Copy Only Formatting

Sometimes you may want to apply an already existing formatting from one part of your document to another part. You have the Format Painter for the purpose. Using the Format Painter can be irritating when dealing with long documents.  Here is another method that is easier to use.

Press CTRL+SHIFT+C instead of CTRL+C. This will copy only the formatting and leave the text.

Move to the destination where the formatting is to be applied. Select the text to which formatting is to be applied. Press CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste the formatting to the selection.

Above are some Microsoft Word tips and tricks that make working on the editor easy. If you have anything to share, please use the comments section.