Since we now live in a virtual world, the earlier you are aware of ways to make life online easier for you the more productive you can be.
Let’s take a look at Microsoft Word, arguably the most used software application to organize documents and how you can navigate your way faster and better.
Microsoft Word comes packed with all sorts of awesome features that allow you to take your document game to the next level, as long as you know how to take advantage of them.
Here are some of Word features you didn’t know you needed;
Find out how well you write (technically):
Most people already know about the spelling and grammar checks in Word, but the program can also score you on the complexity of your writing. Before you perform a spelling and grammar check, make sure you have the boxes checked for “Check Grammar with Spelling” and “Show Readability Statistics” in your Preferences.
This window gives you a breakdown of your word count, words per sentence and your readability scores. The first number, which will be between 0 to 100, is based on the Flesch Reading Ease test, 0 being the most difficult to read and 100 being the easiest. Word suggests hitting between 60 and 70. The second number, between 0 and 10, is based on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, which is designed to give you an idea of how your writing stacks up against U.S. school grade reading levels. Word suggests aiming for between 7 and 8.
Write wherever you want without text boxes:
If you’re into odd formatting, especially a creative document, be it poetry or just wanting to mix things up a bit, Word allows you to easily write wherever you want on a document without needing to create a text box. Just double-click on any blank part of your document and Word will start a line and place your cursor there. Try it now and smile.
Clipboard Panel:
Do you need to copy and store things on a particular document without having to paste on another document? This is for you. The clipboard panel offers a convenient way to keep more than one element on your clipboard at once. Click the tiny pop-out icon within the Clipboard section of the Home tab to open it. Up to 24 recent cut and copy operations are remembered, and you can click on any one of them to paste it at the insertion point. The Options dropdown at the bottom lets you control when the Clipboard panel appears; one option is to make it appear when you press Ctrl+C twice. Life gets easier right?
Typing Accents:
To achieve this, press Accent Grave (this is located beside the 1 on most keyboards) and the Ctrl key at the same time, followed by a letter. To type a capital letter, hold the Shift key just as you would when typing without an accent.
If you can’t remember the keyboard shortcut for an accent, use the Windows Character Map. This tool presents a small window you can keep in the corner of the screen while you work on a document. To launch Character Map, type “character map” in Windows Search.
Microsoft has a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts for international characters, which you can bookmark for future reference.
Protecting your document on a shared computer:
If you work on a shared document, this move is needed. Simply go to File > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password. Type a password, then type it again to confirm it. Save the file to make sure the password takes effect. Microsoft warns that Passwords are case-sensitive and can be a maximum of 15 characters long. But if you lose or forget your password, Word won’t be able to recover it for you. So, be sure to keep a copy of the password in a safe place or create a strong password that you’ll remember.
Adding watermark to your document:
In a few clicks or less, you can add a premade or custom watermark to your Word document. Go to the Design tab, look at the far right of the ribbon, you’ll see add watermark before Page Colour. Select Watermark. You can choose a premade watermark: Confidential or Do Not Copy or create your own watermark by clicking on Custom Watermark.
Do you have more tips, questions or comments? Do share with us in the comment section.
