![]()
1
Finding your way around
This chapter quickly gets you started with Word. It shows you how to launch Word and explains all the main areas in its screen layout. You’ll try some basic text editing as well as looking at the main controls and how they are organized and accessed.
Introduction
Starting Word
The main screen
The Ribbon
The Mini Toolbar
The Quick Access Toolbar
The Status bar
Getting help
Text editing
Selecting text
Working with files
Click and type
Basic navigation
Introduction
Word processing was one of the first popular applications for the modern personal computer. In the early days it provided little more than the ability to enter and change text on the screen. Today, many more people have computers and tablets at home and in the office, and virtually all use a word processor regularly. As the years have passed, the capabilities of the computer and its software have dramatically increased, far beyond the expectations of the early generations of users back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Almost since the beginning, Microsoft Word has been acknowledged as a leader in its field. It is one of the best-selling software applications in any category. It grew in complexity from a program with a handful of menu commands to one with an astonishing array of features.
In updating Word, Microsoft has built logically on the foundation of the previous versions. Rather than relying on complex menus, Word works with tabbed visual controls that reconfigure themselves to suit what you’re currently doing. Accordingly, this book works as a graphical teaching guide – wherever possible, pictures and illustrated examples are used to demonstrate concepts. It’s not intended to replace Microsoft’s documentation; instead you should view it as a way of getting up to speed quickly in a wide range of useful techniques.
The full range of Word’s features is covered in this and the following chapters – from creating and editing simple text-based documents to tables, graphics and research tools, as well as more advanced techniques such as viewing and editing documents on the web.
It’s very important to experiment using your own examples – trying techniques a few times on test documents will give you the confidence you’ll need when working for real.
How to use this book
To gain maximum benefit from this book, make sure you’re first familiar with the Windows operating environment (usin...
