Microsoft Word Instructions - Essay Example

Particularly, Microsoft Word is word processing software that allows users to create and modify different types of documents with the help of a keyboard and mouse. With a click on the program icon, the Word program starts and shows the program window to the user, which has various parts to facilitate users in creating documents easily and effectively. For instance, the very first button on the top left of the program is the Microsoft Office button (Gookin, 2013) that then has several sub-options, such as buttons for creating a new document, opening an existing document, saving and printing, as well as closing the document.

The program window has some of these buttons in the ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ that is always beside the earlier button, which allows the users to do the same tasks with a click with the help of shortcuts. Another important part of the program window is the ‘Title Bar’ that shows the name of the document. There are various other ‘Tabs’ in modern versions of Microsoft Word, such as ‘Home, Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, and View’ (Gookin, 2013) that help the users in performing various tasks as per requirements. The program window also shows the status in the form of page numbers, number of words, language, as well as Zoom percentage at the bottom of the document which is also a useful bar in the window. Another important part of the window is the ‘Ruler’ that always helps the reader in seeing the real measurements on which the document will be printed, which is a very helpful part of the Word software.

Creating documents in Word software is as easy as eating a cake. The program automatically creates a new unsaved document whenever the user starts the program titled automatically as Document1. In this way, a user can easily start a new document. On the other hand, if the program is already open and the user wants to start a new document, the user can click on the blank page icon on the ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ (Gookin, 2013) which will start a new document, and the Office button also has the option of creating a new document. Similar to starting the document, saving a document is also very easy in Microsoft Word software. The users can click the ‘floppy disk icon’ (Gookin, 2013) available on the ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ to save a document, or ‘save’ and ‘save as’ buttons are also available under the Office button. Clicking the save button will always open a dialog box that will allow the user to choose the saving location, as well as a file name for future reference.

Selecting text in the program is very easy, which can be done by dragging a mouse over the text, as well as by using the ‘Shift’ button and arrows to select the text for formatting purposes that is easier to do with the help of Mini toolbar (Gookin, 2013). The mini toolbar has various shortcuts that allow the users to format text’s font, size, and shape as in bold, italic, and underlined, as well as the color and background of the text. The toolbar also has options to change text alignment, as well as add bullets or numerical lists in the document along with the option of sorting the text alphabetically.

Lastly, Microsoft Word has several ready-made templates based on types that a user can select to create a document. For instance, some of the types of templates are labels, books, cards, certificates, flyers, letterheads, memos, reports, statements, etc. Finally, the Word program has a scrollbar on the right side of the window that helps the user to view and navigate the document while making use of Zoom tools to look at things closely or away as per the requirement. All in all, Word processing software is essential software that has made writing and document creation easier than it was ever before.