Microsoft Word Features You Might Have Overlooked

Submitted by Rick on February 20, 2007 - 8:31pm.

Most computer users (myself included) never get close to using everything a piece of software has to offer. Microsoft Word is a great example of this theory. You could work with Word for years and never know all the power that it is possible of yielding. This week, I'm going to point out what I think are some of the features you are likely to use if you knew about them. Thesaurus

Sure you know how to use Word's spell check, but did you know you have access to a pretty good thesaurus as well. Here's how:

1. Highlight a word
2. RIGHT Click on the word
3. Click Synonyms from the menu
4. If you like one of the suggestions, click on it and it will replace the original word for you.

Moving around your Word Document

1. You can always use the vertical scroll bar on the right to move up and down in a document, but you can also:
2. Push Page Up and Page Down on your keyboard to move up or down one screen at a time
3. Push Ctrl+Home to get to the beginning of your document or Ctrl+End to get to the end of your document
4. Use your up and down arrow keys to move up or down one line at a time
5. Push the Ctrl key with your up and down keys to move up or down one paragraph at a time

Get an automatic word count

Word can provide you quick statistics on your document including number of words, lines, characters, pages and paragraphs. Here's how:

1. In all Word version, Click File and Properties from the menus. Then Click the Statistics tab.
2. In Word XP and 2003, Click Tools --> Word Count These are but a few of the gems Word has to offer.

Look in the Tip Archives for tips on customizing bullets, using auto-complete and more or use our site search and search for "Microsoft Word".

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