Ten Ways to Be More Productive in Microsoft Word

Everyone has probably used Microsoft Word.  Microsoft's basic word processor has undergone many revisions during its life, but it remains the primary choice for most individuals and businesses.  Word comes with an amazing number of features, and many people don't know about most of them.  Here are ten features that you might find useful:

Reorganize Your Outline - Word offers an outline view that allows you to control headers and their associated body text.  To go to Outline View, click on the "View" ribbon and select Outline.  From here, you can use the arrow buttons to create an outline of your file.  If you need to move an entire point somewhere else, outline view is a great way to see what text falls under that point.

Graph Your Table - Most people know that you can create graphs of data in an Excel spreadsheet.  However, Word offers the same functionality with data in tables.  To create a graph, select the table data.  Go to the Insert ribbon and choose "Chart", then follow the wizard to create the perfect chart or graph for your data.

See Where You've Been - If you work with large documents, you might find yourself jumping all over to edit parts of the file or correct mistakes others notice.  If you've made a change, moved on, and then want to find that change again, you can use Shift + F5 to move your cursor back through each change.  Keep hitting it until you reach the place you wanted to find.

Hide the Ribbon - If you want to keep your environment clutter-free, you can eliminate the ribbons and only see their titles.  To do this, simply click on the up arrow in the upper right-hand corner or hit Shift + F1.  (Do it again to restore the ribbon to its normal position.)  If you need to access anything on the ribbon, click on the titles to temporarily see that ribbon.

Fill Space - If you need to fill some space for later use, Word makes it easy with a random text generator (it uses text from Office documentation).  Simply enter:  =rand(p,s) , where "p" is the number or paragraphs and "s" is the number of sentences per paragraph.  (If you are wanting a specific number of lines, the number of lines on a full-page document are roughly equal to the number of sentences.)  After you have your numbers, hit enter to see the text generated.

Copy Now, Paste Later - Cut, Copy, and Paste are among the most useful Windows features.  However, Word gives you the ability to expand its use.  By clicking the arrow in the bottom-right corner of the clipboard section (on the Home ribbon), you can see the last 24 items you copied to your clipboard.  Select one to paste it into your document, or click "Paste All" to insert them all.

Update the Date - Do you have a letter that you send frequently with only a few changes?  If the current date is one of those changes, you can automate it.  Click on the Insert tab and select "Date & Time".  Choose the date and/or time format that you want and insert it.  You'll never forget to change the date on your letter again!

Hide Text - Are you printing a document for someone but have confidential text you need to keep but don't want that person to see?  Select the text, right-click it, select "Font" from the menu, and then choose "Hidden" in the new window.  Print the document, and no one will ever know that the information is missing.  Then, to restore the hidden text, select the area where the text was and follow the process again to get your text back.  (This is not an effective way to hide data if you are sending someone the actual file.  If someone follows this process they can unhide the text just as easily as you can.)

Grade Your Work - Word can provide statistics on your writing.  You can see a count of words, characters, paragraphs, and sentences, along with some averages.  Plus, you can also see the Flesch Reading Ease score (0-100, with a higher score being easier to read) and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (0-12, with a lower score being easier to read).  To enable these, click on "File", "Options", "Proofing", and check the "Show readability statistics" button near the bottom.  Then, run the Spell Check (available on the "Review" ribbon) and you will see your scores at the end of the Spell Check.

Inspect Your Document - If you work with confidential or sensitive information and you are preparing to share your file, Word can check it to see if personal information is being shared.  Word will scan for a variety of information and give you the option to remove it before you send the file.  To run this scan, click on "File", and then select "Check for Issues" followed by "Inspect Document" from the center of the window.