5 Advanced Tips on Using MS Word

It is no exaggeration that Microsoft Word has become the most reliable word processing tool in the market today, by which one can carry out a wide range of activities including documentation and report writing. Everyone can start using Microsoft Word from the beginner’s level and proceed to the advance levels in order to accomplish even more complex and professional documents with stunning look and feel.

It is also a fact that some of the advanced features of MS Word are very easy to deal with, it is just that most people often do not have enough time to be acquainted with them. Hence, this article will explain how you can use five useful features of MS Word if you don’t know them already. Some features are very basic, while others can prove to be little complex but each task is explained below in detail:

#1.  Insert Comments

The prime advantage of ‘Insert Comment’ feature is that it will enable a user to make annotations on the screen without changing the original text in his or her document. The concept lies in the ultra intelligence of MS Word that when a comment is added, MS Word numbers it and records it in a separate comment pane, without altering the original text.  MS Word then inserts a comment reference mark in your document and highlights the text that has been subjected to the comment.

Steps:

1. Highlight the Text you want to comment
2. Click “Review” in the Top Main Menu
3. On the Reviewing Toolbar, Click the “Comment” Icon
4. A Pane will appear
5. Type your comment in that Pane
6. Once you are done typing, Click “Close”

#2. Track Changes of Your Document

This is an extremely important feature that will help you track the changes you have done in your document. MS Word makes use of revision marks to indicate the tracked changes. Furthermore, you can also choose to show or hide the track changes on the screen.

1. Open the Document you want to Revise or Review
2. Click “Review” in the Top Main Menu
3. On the Reviewing Toolbar, Click “Track Changes”  
4. Click “Change Tracking Options”

1. Check “Track Moves”
2. Check “Track Formatting”
3. Check “Show lines connecting to text”. Hit “OK” and That will do the trick.

#3. Compare Two Documents

Often we encounter a scenario that there are two different versions of the same document inside your computer, and you feel the urgency of figuring out the differences between the two. It is a painstaking process to compare the documents unless there is an easy solution. Here is one easy solution that you might like to try! The “Compare” feature of MS Word is very useful that gives you a platform to go through both the documents on the same screen, and pinpoint the differences.

1. Click on the “Review” tab on the top menu, click “Compare” and then choose “Compare” again

2. The “Compare” Screen will pop up where you need to choose the original document on your left hand side and the revised document on your right hand side of the screen. A new window will launch with both the documents open in “Compare” mode making your task lot easier when it comes to comparing two documents.

#4.  Remove Hyperlinks in Bulk From Pasted Text

While copying lots of texts, web pages or emails to MS Word, a common problem that everyone faces is the unwanted hyperlinks, more technically known as the anchor text. Right clicking on that anchor text and removing the hyperlink can prove to be very tedious and time consuming when dealing with hundreds of hyperlinks. Therefore, the best way to minimize your efforts and handle this issue of numerous hyperlinks is as follows:

Select (Highlight) your Text from which you want to remove this hyperlinks.

Press CTRL+SHIFT+F9.

Problem Solved! All the Anchor Text has been converted to Plain Text.

#5.  Creating a Table of Contents

Table of Contents can easily be created in MS Word by incorporating the use of styles Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3.  Once you have applied the mentioned heading styles in your document, you can efficiently create an organized Table of Contents.

First, highlight a heading or subheading in your documents that you want to include in the table of content. Then click on any one of the three heading styles available in the “styles” section of the “home” toolbar in MS Word. This will make MS Word to recognize it as a header tag and include it in the automated table of content. Do the same operation for all the headings and subheadings in your document.

Select References in the Top Main Menu

References -> Click Table of Contents

While on the table of contents screen, you may choose anyone of the “Automatic Table” options; “Automatic Table 1″ or “Automatic Table 2″. This will generate an automatic table of content based on the headings and subheading you have already marked using any of the three header styles.