Do you often struggle with formatting issues when working with Word documents? Some of these problems can be easily solved by making some adjustments in advance. Read the following tip to make working with Word easier.
What do I need?
You just need Word.
What do I need to do?
Read the tips below.
- Ruler
Change your settings so that the vertical and horizontal rulers are always shown in Microsoft Word (View – Ruler). Are your margins uneven with a ragged left edge? The rulers let you control the margins of your page and help you to precisely line up your text and other elements. If the paragraphs are misaligned, you may have an indentation issue. The indent markers are the down-pointing triangles at the left of the ruler. In a first line indent the top triangle is placed furthest to the right but in a hanging indent the bottom triangle is furthest to the right. The bottom square indicates the left margin of the paragraph.
- Formatting marks (nonprinting characters)
Indentation is a type of paragraph formatting, but how can you identify a paragraph in a Word document? The answer is formatting marks, which are invisible in a printed document. A paragraph ends with a paragraph mark. Sometimes a paragraph includes nothing else. Click on the paragraph mark ¶ to show the hidden characters. This is helpful when you are putting the finishing touches to your text. For example, your text needs some polishing if you can see line break symbols (an arrow pointing down and to the left) in the middle of your blocks of text.
- Heading styles
Stylish headings are of course nice, but it is at least equally important to use heading levels appropriately. Normal is the style intended for the body text. Always create headings using the styles labelled Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on. No heading level should be out of order. Word’s built-in heading styles may not be suitable for your document but can be edited.
Use heading styles correctly to communicate the organisation of your content. Do not use bold or otherwise style text to look like a heading: always use the heading styles! And vice versa: do not turn a heading into body text by adjusting the font or removing boldface but by applying the Normal style.
- Navigation pane
When you apply heading styles to your headings and the Normal style to the body text, you can quickly navigate through a long document by using the Navigation pane (View – Navigation pane), which appears on the left side of the Word window. The Navigation pane enables you to go to a page or a heading in a Word document without scrolling.
If there are blank spaces or random text in the Navigation pane, check the heading levels. Have your mistakenly applied a heading style to a block of text? Are all your headings identified as headings?
- Undo (CTRL+z)
Is Microsoft Word often trying to be helpful by formatting items based on what it thinks you are doing but getting it wrong? Do you want to get rid of unwanted dashes, lists or capital letters? A quick fix is to undo the latest action, which in this case was not performed by the user but by the autoformatting features in Word. Press CRTL+z or click Undo on the quick access toolbar.
What should I take into account?
Staff and students at Tampere University have access to the O365 services, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. You can edit these files directly via your web browser. You can access these files at work and at home, especially if you sync them.
Read more:
As Microsoft is continuously developing its services, new features are regularly added to Word, too. You can find the latest how-to articles on Microsoft’s Word help website and read more about Word for Windows training opportunities
The Digital Toolkit offers you a range of tips for using Word: read more tips about using Publisher and the tips for becoming a OneNote wizard.
Please note: Read the tip about keyboard shortcuts. Save time and maximise your productivity!