that's displayed tends to be specific to whatever you’re doing in Word. Little buttons that look like question marks also summon Word Help.
In the age of Google, Word also offers a Tell Me help box on the Ribbon, as illustrated in Figure 1-2. Type a topic or question in the box and press the Enter key to see a quick list of commands or suggestions, or to obtain online help.
End Your Word-Processing Day
It's the pinnacle of etiquette to know when and how to excuse oneself. For example, the phrase “Well, I must be off,” works a lot better than growling, “Something more interesting must be happening anywhere else” – especially at Thanksgiving. The good news for Word is that’s completely acceptable to quit the program without hurting its feelings.
When you've finished word processing and you don't expect to return to it anytime soon, you quit the Word program. Click the X button in the upper-right corner of the Word program window (refer to Figure 1-2).
The catch? You have to close each and every Word document window that’s open before you can proclaim that you’ve completely quit Word.
The other catch? Word won’t quit during that shameful circumstance when you have unsaved documents. If so, you’re prompted to save the document, as shown in Figure 1-4. My advice is to click the Save button to save your work; refer to Chapter 8 for specifics on saving documents.
Figure 1-4: Better click that Save button!
If you click the Don’t Save button, your work isn’t saved and Word quits. If you click the Cancel button, Word doesn’t quit and you can continue working.
✔ You don't have to quit Word just to start editing another document. Refer to the next couple of sections for helpful, timesaving information.
✔ After quitting Word, you can continue to use Windows by starting any other program, such as Spider Solitaire or perhaps something more relaxing, like Call of Duty.
You don't always have to quit Word. For example, if you're merely stopping work on one document to work on another, quitting Word is a waste of time. Instead, you can close the document.
To close a document in Word and not quit, follow these steps:
1. Click the File tab.
The File screen appears. Commands line the left side of the screen, as shown in Figure 1-5.
2. Choose the Close command.
3. Save the document, if you’re prompted to do so.
The shame! Always save before closing. Tsk-tsk.
Figure 1-5: The File tab screen.
After it’s closed, you return to the main Word window, although a document isn’t shown and many of the command buttons are dimmed (unavailable). At this point, you can start working on a new document or open a document you previously saved.
Bottom line: There’s no point in quitting Word when all you want to do is start editing a new document.
✔
✔ The keyboard shortcut for the Close command is Ctrl+W. This command may seem weird, but it’s used to close documents in many programs.
✔
Don’t quit Word if you know that you will use it again soon. In fact, I've been known to keep Word open and running on my computer for weeks at a time. The secret is to use the Minimize button, found in the upper-right corner of the screen (refer to Figure 1-2).
Clicking the Minimize button shrinks the Word window to a button on the taskbar. With the Word window out of the way, you can do other things with your computer. Then when you're ready to word-process again, click the Word button on the taskbar to restore the Word window to the screen.
Chapter 2
The Typing Chapter
In This Chapter
▶ Knowing the keyboard and mouse
▶ Using the spacebar
▶ Using the Enter key
▶ Observing the status bar
▶ Minding the space between pages
▶ Showing and hiding hidden characters
▶ Dealing with weird underlines
Word processing is about using a keyboard. It’s typing. That’s the way computers were used for years, long before the mouse and all the fancy graphics became popular. Yep – ask a grizzled old-timer and you’ll hear tales of ugly text screens and keyboard commands that would tie your fingers in knots. Though things today aren’t that bad, I highly recommend that you bone up on your keyboard skills to get the most from your word-processing duties.
Input Devices Galore
When you process words, you’re typing: clickity-clack-clack. You use your fingers and one thumb to manipulate the computer keyboard. It’s an important part of getting text on a page, but also important is the mouse. No, you don’t type with the mouse, but you’ll do some pointing and clicking in additional to clickity-clack-clacking.
I’m sure you can easily recognize a computer keyboard, but do you know the official terms that refer to its various keys?
Relax: No one does.
Rather than look at all 100+ keys as a marauding hoard, consider how the keys are clustered into groups, as illustrated in Figure 2-1. To best use Word and understand how the keyboard is referenced in this book, it helps to know the general keyboard areas illustrated in the figure.
Figure 2-1: A typical PC keyboard.
Of all the keys, a few play important roles in the word-processing task. They are
Enter: Marked with the word Enter and
