key twice to add extra space between your paragraphs. That extra space is added automatically, provided it’s part of the paragraph format, also covered in Chapter 11.
✔ If you want to indent a paragraph, press the Tab key after pressing Enter. As with other word-processing rules and regulations, paragraphs can be indented automatically, provided that format is applied, as covered in (you guessed it) Chapter 11.
Stuff That Happens While You Type
As you madly compose your text, fingers energetically jabbing the buttons on the keyboard, you may notice a few things happening on the screen. You might see spots. You might see lines and boxes. You may even see lightning! All are side effects of typing in Word. They’re normal, and they’re presented to help you.
The reason it's the status bar is that it shows you the status of your document, updating information as you type. A collection of information appears starting at the left end of the status bar and marching right, as shown in Figure 2-2.
Figure 2-2: Stuff that lurks on the status bar.
The status bar information is updated as your document changes. Use the information to see, for example, which page and line you’re editing, the word count, and so on.
The info tidbits on the status bar are customizable. Chapter 29 explains how to control what information appears on the status bar.
As your document gains length, Word shows you where one page ends and another page begins. This visual assistance helps you keep elements on the same page, but also shows you how text flows between pages.
The visual clue for a new page is shown in Figure 2-3. In Print Layout view, the page break appears graphically. Text above the ethereal void is on one page, and text below the void is on the next page.
Figure 2-3: The page break in Print Layout view.
In Draft view, the page break appears as a line of dots from left to right across the document. And in other views, the page break may not show up at all. In that case, use the status bar to determine which page you're working on. For example, when the page-number indicator changes from 6 to 7, you’ve started a new page.
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✔ Don’t force a page break by pressing the Enter key a gazillion times! Instead, see Chapter 13 for information on inserting page breaks in Word.
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See Chapter 25 for a longer discussion of collapsible headers, as well as information on Word’s outline mode.
There’s no cause for alarm if you see spots – or dots – amid the text you type, such as
This•can•be•very•annoying.¶
What you're seeing are nonprinting characters. Word uses various symbols to represent things you normally don’t see: spaces, tabs, the Enter key, and more. These jots and tittles appear only when you’ve activated the Show/Hide feature.
To use the Show Hide feature, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2.
The button features a paragraph symbol as its icon, shown in the margin.
To hide the symbols again, click the command button a second time.
✔ Why bother with showing the goobers? Sometimes, it's useful to check out what's up with formatting, find stray tabs visually, or locate missing paragraphs, for example.
✔ WordPerfect users: The Show/Hide command is as close as you can get to your beloved Reveal Codes command.
✔ The keyboard shortcut for the Show/Hide command is Ctrl+Shift+8. Use the 8 on the typewriter area of the keyboard, not the numeric keypad.
When Word underlines your text without permission, it’s drawing your attention to something amiss. These special underlines are not text formats. Here are a few of the underlines you may witness from time to time:
Red zigzag: Spelling errors in Word are underlined with red zigzags. See Chapter 7.
Blue zigzag: Grammatical and word-choice errors are flagged with a blue zigzag underline. Again, see Chapter 7.
Blue underlines: Word courteously highlights web page addresses by using blue underlined text in your document. You can Ctrl+click the blue underlined text to visit the web page.
Red lines: You may see red lines in the margin, underneath text, or through text. If so, it means that you’re using Word’s Track Changes feature. See Chapter 26.
Beyond these automatic underlines, you can apply the underline format to your text, choosing the type of underline and its color. See Chapter 10.
Part II
Your Basic Word
In this part …
✔ Discover how to use the scroll bars, move the
