1.1.4: Exploring the Home and View Tab of Microsoft Word

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The Home Tab contains the most commonly used document controls; actions in the Home Tab can change the font and size of the text, paragraph, and line spacing, copy and paste, change the organizational structure of the document.

The Home Tab is grouped into four distinct areas: Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, and Styles.

Clipboard

The main function of Clipboard is the Cut, Copy, and Paste feature. All Office Applications share a Universal Clipboard. This means that items that are copied in Windows 10 can be shared between Office Applications. You can view the Universal Clipboard by clicking on the clipboard box with an arrow facing down and to the right in Word. A new navigation pane will open on the left side of the screen. It will display all the items that you have cut or copied in Windows 10 recently. This allows you to work with multiple items you have pasted

In addition to the Clipboard Navigation pane, users can also utilize Format Painter . Format Painter allows the user to copy the text size, fonts, and any other formatting, to another selected body of the text. To use the format painter functionality, users should select the text they would like to copy, and then click on “Format Painter”. Then select the text they wish to change. Users may also doubleclick on “Format Painter” and change as many text selections as they would like. When they have completed changing the text selections, they can click on “Format Painter” to stop. While Format Painter is a useful tool to change selected text, the Font groupings of the Home Tab have many more features.

Font Group

The Font group provides unlimited customization of text. It allows users to change the font or style of the text, the size of the text, provide text emphasis, and even change the colors.

Beginning in the upper left-hand corner, the Font Selection Box and Text Size boxes allow customizations of hundreds of font designs and text sizes. The capital “A” button on the right allows the user to gradually increase the text size with the smaller capital “A” button next to it on the right decreases the text size. The capital “Aa” button to the right changes the case of the text. Using this feature, selected text can be made into lower case, UPPER CASE, Capitalize Each Word, tOGGLE eACH cASE, and regular Sentence case. Finally, in the button to the right that appears to have an “A” with an eraser removes all the formatting’s from the Font menu. The lower row of the Font group contains Bold , Italics , and Underline (without underline options for line thickness). Next to these commonly used emphasis tools are strikethrough (which places a line in the text), subscript (which types small letters under the text), and superscript (which types small letters above the text).Next to subscript and superscript is an outlined letter “A” which allows the adjustments of text effects and typography to create shadows for other text effects. To the right is an icon with the letter’s “ab” with a pen . This is the highlighter option which allows the student to choose between multiple colors to highlight the selected text. Finally, to the right of the highlighter menu is an icon of the letter “A” with a line underneath . This control allows the user to change the color of any selected text with an almost infinite number of color options. By clicking on the arrow pointing down and to the right in the Font group, an expanded menu with even more options will launch, allowing the user with many more text customization options, as well as the option to set default text options and effects.

Paragraph Group

The Paragraph Group focuses on arranging text in a paragraph. Users may create lists, adjust the indentation, sort items, show paragraph formatting, correctly, align text in a paragraph, adjust line spacing, add fill color in shapes, and create borders.

Bullet Lists

Starting in the upper left corner are bullet lists . Bullet lists should be used when creating a list of similar items that do not require any order. Clicking on the drop-down arrow allows for customization of the appearance of bullet lists. Pressing “Tab” on the keyboard will indent a list item and create a sub bulleted item.

Numbered Lists

To the right of Bullet, Lists are numbered lists . Numbered lists are like bullet lists, but they should be used when listing out a sequence of events that must be followed in order. Clicking on the drop-down arrow will allow for customization of the numbered list. Pressing “Tab” on the keyboard will indent a list item and create a sub numeral.

Multi-Level Lists

To the left of Numbered Lists are Multi-Level Lists . Multi-Level Lists provide more customization of lists and sub-lists to the user.

Increase/Decrease

Indent Next on the right, the increase/decrease indent icons allow the user to move the selected text to the right or left five spaces, or to the next tab setting. Increase/Decrease indent also changes the hierarchy of the list. Increasing an indent to the right will make an item a sub-bullet or sub-number of the item above it and decreasing indent to the left will do the opposite.

Sort

After an increase/decrease indent is the Sort icon allows the user to arrange a current selection of text in alphabetical or numerical order. It is usually used when working with tables in Microsoft Word.

Show/Hide Paragraph Formatting

Finally, in the top right corner of the paragraph group is the Show/Hide Paragraph Formatting icon allows the user to view all the hidden formatting options that are currently attributed to the document. This is useful if the formatting seems incorrect in a document and the user is trying to investigate it. Any formatting displayed is not printed.

Paragraph Alignment

The bottom row of the paragraph group begins with Paragraph Alignment settings . The settings align the selected text to the left side of the screen (which is standard formatting), centered (which is common for titles), right-aligned, and justified, which distributes text evenly between the margins. Most word documents are written with left alignment, so that is the default settings.

Line & Paragraph Spacing

To the right of the paragraph alignment icons is Line & Paragraph Spacing . These settings allow the user to choose how much space exists between lines and between paragraphs. This is helpful to enhance the readability of paragraphs by creating enough space between sentences and paragraphs. For more customization, users can click on “Line Spacing Options” in the drop-down menu for even greater controls.

Shading

The Shading function to the right of Line & Paragraph Spacing allows the user to change the color behind a paragraph, table, or selected text. It can be used in flyers and more creative word documents.

Borders

The Page Borders icon allows the user to create borders around selected text and/or paragraphs and define the type of borders from the drop-down menu. There is every type of border imaginable for the user. Borders are usually created to create distance or space between separate ideas or paragraphs.

More settings

Users who desire more control in paragraph formatting can click on the arrow icon facing down and to the right. . This will launch a more settings menu that will provide customization of the line & paragraph spacing and page breaks.

Styles Group and Editing Tab

The Find/Replace/Selection Pane allows you to search for any text in Microsoft Word and replace the text with another text entry. Clicking on the “Find” menu will display a side navigation bar allowing the user to find any word or phrase in the document. Clicking on the Replace icon will launch a Find and Replace Dialogue box which will allow the user to replace specific text with different text. For example, I wrote a five-page paper on arc-welding, and discovered that arc-welding should be changed to the word “robotic arc welding”, I could use find and replace to automatically replace every phrase “arc welding” with “robotic arc welding”.

Finally, the Select icon allows the user with more options in selecting text and or objects in the document.

View Tab

Microsoft Word provides a variety of options to view their document for the user to customize their workspace. Read Mode allows the document to be viewed without any editing tools available in Fullscreen mode. Print Layout simulates what the document would look like if the document were printed. It is the default view mode in Microsoft Word. Web Layout simulates the view of the document if it were on a web. Outline mode is for a way to quickly insert ideas on the page, while Draft allows the user to just see the text in the document.

Learning Tools allows the document viewer to customize the way the document is presented and read to them. It allows the user how text and pictures are displayed. Users can also determine whether to display the Ruler on the top and left sides of the workspace, gridlines on the document to make it appear like graph paper, and the navigation pane on the left-hand side of the document. The user can also Zoom in or out, and have the document automatically be adjusted to the display size of one page or multiple pages. Users can even open a new window of the document to work in two different places at the same time, or split the document at the insertion point to work in multiple sections at the same time in the document. Finally, Word users can click on the Switch Windows icon on the screen to switch between open word documents, and Record Macros, which allow the user to create their shortcuts by recording actions on the screen and creating a shortcut to perform everything they previously did. When they need to replicate that task, they can enter shortcut and the Macro would be initiated. Macros are for advanced users and not covered in detail in this text.