Word Processing Cheat Sheet

This cheat sheet can be applied to most word processing packages running in a Windows environment. This guide is not intended to be complete in itself: use it when you get stuck or start at a particular task.

Starting Up

Double-click on the MS Word icon.

Use the File menu to do the following operations on documents (files): create a New file; Open an existing file; Close a file; Save a file.

Finishing Up

Choose Exit from the File menu. You will be asked to Save the file, giving it a name, if you have not already done so. See Saving, Naming and Retrieving Files below.

To Open a Document

Choose File: Open you will see a screen showing the current directory the PC is looking in, and a list of files in that directory.

To find a particular file, you have to select the correct drive in the Drives box, and also to select the appropriate directory by clicking on the folder icons in the box above the Drives box. To list all files in a directory, you can type *.* in the File Name box. You then scroll through the files listed until you have found the one you want.

Saving, Naming and Retrieving Files

When you save your files you have to place them in specific parts of your floppy or hard disk so that they can be found again. Just as you need to file documents in a filing cabinet in such a way that you can retrieve them. When you are saving your file on the computer you start by checking that the disk drive is correctly allocated i.e. A: (for your floppy disk) and C: (normally) for the hard disk in your computer. This is equivalent to specifying the correct filing cabinet. You then move on to specifying into which directory you will save the file, i.e. into which drawer in the filing cabinet. Finally when you are saving a file for the first time, or you are renaming a file, you provide a name for the file.

To save a file for the first time you use File; Save. To rename a file, use File; Save As. Check at this stage that you have the correct drive and directory. Try and give your file a name that is meaningful now and later. It can have a 3 letter extension (or suffix) which classifies the kind of document you are saving, such as .doc for general word-processor documents. This allows you to search for a file you want without having to look at all the files on your disk. If you omit the 3 letter extension, Word for Windows will automatically assign .doc to the end of the word-processed file name.

The Save command stores all changes made to the file. It is good practice to Save frequently to make sure you do not accidentally lose your work, e.g. through a power failure.

Typing Something

Just type! The text will be inserted wherever the flashing bar cursor ( | ) is. To type anywhere else, point to the spot with the mouse and click. This moves the cursor to the new position.

Deleting Something

Either: move the cursor to just after the text to be removed then press the Backspace key. Each press of this key will delete one character. Backspace rubs out from right to left; Delete rubs out from left to right.

Or: Highlight the text to be deleted then: press Backspace once or select Cut from the Edit menu or just type the new text (which will replace the highlighted text)

If you do the wrong thing, stop, then choose the Undo option from the Edit menu. Try it now! This will reverse the last action you did, and is very useful.

Highlighting Text

To highlight one word, double-click on it. To highlight one line, move the mouse to the left hand margin till the ‘|’ changes to an arrow; then click once.

To highlight a large section, click once (and let go) at the start of that section. Point the mouse at the end of the section, hold in the Shift key and then click again.

To highlight the whole document press the <Ctrl> key and A at the same time.

Moving around the document

Click the arrows in the scroll bar to move text up or down a line at a time. Clicking in the grey area between the arrows and the scroll box moves the text about a screenful. Dragging the scroll box lets you move any distance in one operation.

Moving and Copying Text

To Copy text to a new location, highlight the text, select Copy from the Edit menu, point and click the mouse in the new location then select Paste from the Edit menu.

Copy does not affect the original bit of text: it stays where it is. You are merely duplicating it and reproducing it elsewhere.

The Cut option from the Edit menu removes the original bit of text, stores it in the clipboard from where you can paste it back into your document elsewhere.

In short: Highlight, choose Cut or Copy, select new location, Paste.

You can repeat the Paste operation to insert the contents of the clipboard repeatedly.

Style

To change the way text is printed, highlight it then format it. To format it, use the icons on the tool bar (the 'B' icon changes to Bold, the 'I' produces italics, and the 'U' gives underlines). You can choose a new font from the font box in the far left of the toolbar (click on the arrow, and a scrollable list appears from which you choose a new font) or a new font size from the box to the right of that.

Alternatively, from the menu, choose Style then you can change the Font, the size and the style of the highlighted text.

Format and Layout

Remember, before you change the layout or format of an object (a word or paragraph), you must select the relevant object first.

WP packages work in terms of paragraphs: the format you apply to part of a paragraph will apply to the whole of the paragraph, although each paragraph can be independently formatted from all the others. A paragraph is defined as a sequence of characters followed by a return character i.e. every time you press return (or enter) when typing you are signalling the end of one paragraph.

Paragraphs can be aligned (i.e. have straight edges) to the left, the right, both sides (fully justified) or centred, with text placed in the middle of the page. Select Paragraph from the Format menu to alter the alignment of paragraphs. Try it using the menus, then use the four alignment icons on the toolbar.

The Ruler will control how documents are spaced on the page: you can change margins, tabs and paragraph indentation from the ruler. The ruler should appear above your document – if you can’t see it make sure you select/click Ruler from the View menu.

Margins are changed by dragging the grey triangles along the ruler. The top one shows where the first line of a paragraph will start; the bottom one shows where the rest of the lines will appear. Hold down the Shift key, then click on the triangles to move then independently. Alternatively, choose Page Setup from the File menu to alter the margins.

Tabs are used to line up parts of the document, to create tables and so on. They are tricky to master, but very powerful to use. There are two steps to using tabs: type them in to the document as characters, then give them formatting information.

You insert a tab in the text by simply pressing the Tab key. This puts an unformatted tab in, and may have little or no effect, or may move text about drastically: try it. To format the Tab, highlight the text it is in, then click on the ruler: this will tell the tab to line up from that point. There are left, right and centre tabs available.

You can format tabs by selecting Tabs... from the Format menu. This allows you to give formatting information to tabs that are already in the text.

Other Features

Headers and Footers can be added to the text by choosing Headers and Footers.. from the View menu. These will appear at the top or bottom of all pages in the document.

Adding Page numbers or Dates to documents. Go to the point in the document you want to add numbers or dates to. Select Insert Page Numbers from the Insert menu (there are a few options for page number location and format here).

The Spell Checker is very handy for highlighting mistakes – select Spelling and Grammar from the Tools menu and you can check your grammar as well as spelling. You may need to check which version of English you are using though. Do this by selecting which version of English you prefer from Tools and then Language.

Further Help

The Help menu has an index that allows you to search for guidance on a specific topic.