Undo/Redo
When you make a mistake, Word can easily undo the mistake. Word has provided users with a toolbar button to undo mistakes (remember if you put your mouse on top of any toolbar button, a nametag appears). The Undo button can reverse many of your last steps. To use the Undo button, as soon as you make a mistake, click on the Undo button and the last thing you changed will be undone. Note: you also have a Redo button right next to the Undo button. The Redo button puts back the changes you have undone.
Paragraph Marker
On the toolbar you have a button called Show/Hide¶. The symbol on the button is called a paragraph marker. When pressed, the paragraph marker toolbar button displays arrows, dots, paragraph markers, and other symbols on your screen. These symbols are useful to let you know exactly what you have pressed on the keyboard. A dot represents that a space has been inserted by the space bar. An arrow shows that the tab key has been pressed. The paragraph marker represents the end of a paragraph (meaning the ENTER key was hit). You should get into the habit of viewing your documents with the paragraph marker option on. Remember, when typing, one space is needed between words and two spaces between sentences. You can easily tell if you are typing correctly by counting how many dots are between words and sentences.
Word ‘97 has a built in spell checker. As you type Word checks to make sure all of the typed words can be found in its dictionary. When Word does not recognize a word a red line is placed under the word. When this happens, you can right click your mouse on top of the word (meaning you place your mouse on top of the word with the red underline and press the mouse button on the right). As you do so, a small menu pops open. The top part of the menu lists correct spellings for the word the computer thinks you are trying to spell. To select one of these words, place your mouse on top of the word and click. The correct word automatically replaces the incorrect word. Also, on the popup menu, you have the option Ignore All. When you choose this option, you are telling Word that you are sure you have spelled the word correctly so it should remove the red underline from the word anytime it sees the word within that document. You also can choose the Add option. The Add option tells Word to add the word into its dictionary so it will never mark it as misspelled again. You can spell check the entire document at once by clicking on the Spell Check toolbar button. This method is easier than scrolling around the document looking for each underlined word yourself.
Be extremely careful of what you add into the dictionary. The changes are permanent and very difficult to remove!
Grammar Check works much the same as Spell Check. In Word, if you have used incorrect grammar, the phrase or sentence will be underlined in green. You can right click on the words and you will see a popup menu. You can also do a grammar and spelling check at the same time by making sure the "Check Grammar" button is checked at the bottom of the Spelling and Grammar dialog box.
Auto Correct
When we are typing we often make common errors. Word has made a list of common errors and has told the computer to automatically change them. For example, if you type in the word teh instead of "the", Word will automatically replaces teh with "the." A list of other common errors are listed in the Auto Correct command in the tools menu. Auto Correct also automatically changes keyboard symbols into graphical symbols. For example, 1/2 when typed is changed to ½. Also, (c) is automatically changed to ©. You can turn off any of the options in AutoCorrect. To turn off any specific feature, go into the AutoCorrect window through the Tools Menu and click on top of the check mark next to the option you would like to turn off. I would recommend turning off the Defines Styles Based on Your Formatting underneath the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
Cut, Copy, and Paste
Under the Edit menu you have three commands called cut, copy, and paste. Note: you can also choose any of these commands through the toolbar menu or using their keyboard shortcuts. Cut, copy, and paste allows you to move text or objects from one part of a document to another, from one file to another, or even from one application to another.
To use the cut option, select any text or object that you wish to remove and then click Cut. Once you click Cut, the text or object will be removed and copied into the short-term memory of the computer on what is called the clipboard. This is useful because you can then use the paste command to place what was cut into a different place.
The copy option works just like the cut command, except when you copy something it’s not removed. The copy option makes a copy of the selected object on to the clipboard. After you press the copy command, it may seem as if nothing has happened, but once you choose the paste command, the object that was copied is then inserted into the document. Note: to control where the object is pasted, place you cursor into the document where you want the object, then click the paste command. The object will be pasted where the cursor is.
When you have long documents and you need to find where a word or phrase is located in the file you can use the Find command from the Edit Menu. When you choose Find from the Edit menu the Find and Replace Window pops up on your screen. Type in the word or phrase you are trying to locate in your document in the white box next to where it says Find What. Next, click on the Find Next button and the word or phrase will be highlighted in your document.
Replace command is located on the same window as the Find command. Find and replace commands are used together. For instance, if I was using someone’s name in my document and found out later on that I had misspelled the name, I could either manually search through the document looking for each time I used the name or have the Find command do that for me. To automatically have the name changed to the correct spelling, I would type the correct spelling in the white box next to the words ReplaceWith. By doing so, the computer will automatically find the name and automatically replace it with the correct spelling throughout my whole document.
Next to the paste command on the toolbar, is a picture of a paintbrush. This button is the format painter. The format painter copies the formatting of any selected text. Once the format painter button is pressed, your mouse will turn into a paintbrush indicating the format painter command was chosen. Next, to paste the copied formatting, highlight on any text. Once you do so, the formatting will automatically apply to the selected text. Notice that your mouse pointer returns to normal. If you would like to paste the copied formatting to lots of text, you need to double click on the icon instead of single click. You will then be apply to select text again and again without the paintbrush turning off. When you are done, turn of the paintbrush by clicking on the toolbar button again.
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