Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks
Microsoft Word is the most popular word processor for Windows. There is a high chance that you will have to work with this program at some point. So it is useful to learn some tips and tricks to improve productivity and make our lives a bit easier. I present to you some of the tips and tricks that I have learned along the way.
- Use the format painter
- Use keyboard shortcuts —they’re your friends
- Use the selection pane
- Using the format painter
The format painter can be used to apply the same formatting to multiple pieces of text or graphics. It can be used to quickly apply the same color, font size, font style, border style to text and graphics. The format painter lets you copy formatting from one object and apply it to other objects.
To use the format painter, highlight the formatting that you want to copy, click on the Format Painter button. Click once to use the copied format a single time and double click to use multiple times.
2. Using keyboard shortcuts
Microsoft Word comes with a whole host of shortcuts to make our lives easier. From common shortcuts like Ctrl + V to more obscure shortcuts such as Alt+Shift+I, the keyboard shortcuts make you more productive. Here are the some of the keyboard shortcuts that I mostly use
3. Using the selection pane
This may be one of the most underrated feature of Word. The selection pane is used to manage objects that are in the Word documents. The objects can be the shapes, images and the smart art in your document.
The selection pane can be used to reorder the shapes as well as to group them to make them easier to move and format. The grouped objects can be moved and formatted as a whole.
You can find the selection pane in the Format menu of the Ribbon which becomes active after a shape has been clicked on.
TLDR;
- Use the format painter to quickly apply some previous formatting rules
- Use the shortcuts to be more productive and get work done quickly
- Use the selection pane to manage and format shapes, graphics and objects
