Do you write a lot of texts professionally or are you studying and currently working on a scientific paper? So that the texts make a good impression in the future, we will show you a few tricks that you will not necessarily find in Microsoft Word right away.
Microsoft Word is the most used program for writing texts. It offers many possibilities for text editing, design and correction. Word users will certainly already be familiar with the standard functions. But the program has many more features to offer, some of which are quite hidden. We present the best tips and tricks for Microsoft Word.
Tip 1: Customize the design
By default, Word appears in light mode. If that bothers you, you can personalize the design via File – Options – General – Microsoft Office copy. You can choose between a gray or dark color scheme, and even a colorful design is available.
Tip 2: Templates
Are you writing a newsletter or do you have to submit a report on a regular basis? Word provides you with various templates for this. Under “File” you will find numerous template examples for all possible areas of application at the top. No matter whether you want to make a voucher, write a greeting card, write a blog article or prepare the next annual report, you will find professionally designed templates here. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Also read: How did Microsoft come about? The history of the technology giant
Tip 3: Save/Open PDF
Word documents have long been saved directly as PDFs. The function to open a PDF directly in Word is relatively new. Opening works the same as with a Word document. A version prepared for Word then appears on the screen, which you can edit and change as normal.
Tip 4: Focus
The “View” tab now offers the option of working in a focused manner. By clicking on “Focus” the menu bar disappears. Word then appears like the famous blank sheet of paper waiting to be written on. There is no distraction from any menu functions.
Tip 5: Office Lens
Photographing text using a smartphone is just as practical as dictating text. The Microsoft Office Lens app is available free of charge in the well-known stores. Office Lens converts photographed text into a Word document that you can edit immediately.
Tip 6: Dictate
Also new in the “Start” tab is the dictation function. A very practical function that saves a lot of typing work, especially with longer text passages.
The dictation of texts in Word now works really well and almost error-free when spoken slowly and clearly. As with a dictaphone, punctuation marks must be spoken. Word usually recognizes the spoken punctuation marks and automatically inserts them into the text.
Dictating text makes sense above all when you want to insert passages from another text into your own document. Even if not everything appears completely error-free on the screen, a lot of time can be saved by dictating text.
We explain exactly how the function works here: Easily dictate texts in Microsoft Word
Tip 7: Pictures & pictograms
If you want to illustrate your texts, Word will provide you with the appropriate images, graphics and pictograms. To do this, look under the “Insert” tab for the item “Pictograms”. There you have countless freely available motifs that you can use to make your texts more varied.
Tip 8: Screenshot
This feature integrates Windows’ own screenshot tool into Word. Under the “Insert” tab, simply click on “Screenshot”. This way you can easily clip images from web pages or other sources. The image sections then appear directly in your document.
Tip 9: Insert online videos
YouTube videos can now also be easily integrated into Word. This function can be found under the “Insert” tab. Click on ‘Online videos’ and a dialog will open. Enter the URL at this point and a preview image for the video will appear. The video can be played with a click.
Tip 10: Draw
Perhaps just a gimmick for many writers of texts: the “Draw” tab. Different colored pens and other drawing tools are available to you in Word. You can use this, for example, to add text corrections by hand or to highlight certain text passages in color.
The Freehand to Shape and Freehand to Equation features are particularly useful. The former allows you to draw a circle or triangle in the document with a pen. Word recognizes the shape and creates a clean copy. The second function should be interesting for students. Here, complicated equations and corresponding mathematical symbols can be handwritten in a window. Word turns the input into clean text.
Also read: Sign digitally – edit documents easily and directly on your PC or smartphone
Tip 11: Share
This Word feature is useful for teams working together on a document. The “Share” function is at the top right and has a blue background. Simply click and share the document with individual team members. You can give the share specific editing rights if you wish. If you have shared the text with different team members, you will see their changes in Word in real time. You can then react directly to comments, for example.
Tip 12: Notepad
The editor is an integral part of the “Start” tab. You can also access the editor via the ‘Review’ tab.
With the editor, Microsoft Word now offers powerful help for correcting texts. The new text correction function can now detect more than just typos, missing punctuation marks or grammatical errors.
The editor also checks your text for formal language, conciseness, understandability and choice of words. How exactly Word should check your document can be set to suit your needs via File – Options – Document Check.
The function to check the document for similarity to online sources should be interesting for students – keyword: plagiarism.
Tip 13: Shortcut “Double Spaces”
Careless mistakes are annoying and leave a bad impression on the reader. Double spaces are definitely part of it. But especially with longer texts, the search for the wrong spacing can be time-consuming.
With the key combination “Ctrl” and “H” you can delete all double spaces in one fell swoop. a window is opening. In the “Search for” field, type two spaces. Place a space in the “replace with” field. Then press “Enter” and when prompted, click “Replace All”. You’ve already removed all the incorrect spacing in your document.
Tip 14: For long texts – thumbnails
Many people are probably familiar with this representation from Power Point. Especially with very long Word texts with many pages, it is often annoying to scroll through the pages. This is where the “Page by Page” view, which is located under the “View” tab, helps. If you have selected this view, the “Thumbnail views” icon will appear on the right. With a click, Word generates an overview of all pages of the Word document. This allows you to jump back and forth between the pages in a targeted manner. That saves a lot of time.
Tip 15: Quick search
The longer a text is, the more annoying is the search for certain passages or words. However, Word offers some shortcuts. A very useful one is the quick search using “Ctrl” and “F”. This function is useful when searching for misspelled words. By entering the word you are looking for, all the passages in the document appear on the left-hand side.
Tip 16: Translate
Word can now also translate texts from a wide variety of languages into German or a German text into another language. Of course, when translating into another language, the text should be proofread by a native speaker if in doubt.
Otherwise, the function is suitable for transferring texts in a foreign language into German. Even if the translation is not error-free, the meaning of a text can be quickly grasped in this way.
Tip 17: Immersive Reader
The plastic reader, also in the “View” tab, offers several functions at the same time. The layout of the text can be adjusted via a special menu. This increases the readability of the text.
A certain number of lines can also be highlighted. This function replaces the index finger, which helps little beginning readers to understand a text line by line and not to slip with the eye.
The Plastic Reader even offers a reading function. The voice sounds very human and not at all like a computer. This function is also suitable for young readers to become more familiar with a language, words and texts.
By the way: All layout changes to the text disappear again when you close the immersive reader. This function is therefore suitable for trying out certain layout effects without formatting the entire document straight away.
Tip 18: Check accessibility
You can make your entire Word document accessible. Word offers a simple function for this under the “Check” tab. By clicking on “Check accessibility” you will be shown where you still need to adapt your document so that people with poor eyesight can also read it.
Also Read: 25 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Should Know
Tip 19: Reduce document size
Does your Word document contain a lot of images? Then the file size can grow very quickly. It may then be difficult to email the file. Therefore, Word now has a way to reduce the file size. Simply select File – Options – Advanced. Scroll down a bit to “Image size and quality”. Here you can adjust the size of the Word document by reducing the image quality so that it can also be sent by e-mail.
Tip 20: Turn a document into a website with a click
A very useful function appears under File – Transform. By clicking on “Transform” you can turn the entire document into a web page. All you have to do is select one of the design templates that appear on the right. The integrated Sway interface takes care of everything else. Sway is actually an Office extension for preparing reports or presentations interactively, but is suitable in connection with Word to create a website with a single click.