Raiders of the lost Word

Browse through the menus in Microsoft Word and you'll find a multitude of options, many of which can seem incomprehensible. Even versions as old as Word 97 are packed with a plethora of features.

However, among these are plenty of useful tools and tricks to help save time and produce impressive reports, letters and other documents. We've picked out some of the best ones to show you how to make the most of Word and become a bit of an expert, too.

Large documents
Creating and working with large documents can be difficult using a word processor but Word can be of some help. Word can automatically format a lot of the text in a document as you type it, applying a particular type and size of text to headings, sub-headings and the main text.

By clicking on the Tools menu, choosing AutoCorrect, then selecting the AutoFormat tab from the dialogue box that appears, you can see some of the options. Fractions can be automatically formatted correctly, text changed to bold if surrounded by asterisks and website and email addresses changed to hyperlinks.

Further AutoFormat features are available by clicking on the Format menu and choosing AutoFormat. A small box will appear, allowing you to activate AutoFormat and accept or reject each change that is applied.

AutoFormat can be of particular help in certain situations. For example, it can remove extra lines between paragraphs, change headings and create new ones. The option to review each change and accept or reject it proves very useful in such circumstances.

The Style Gallery (called 'Theme' in later versions of Word) in the Format menu enables you to apply particular fonts and sizes to headings and text in a document. It can be applied to an entire document in a matter of seconds and may prove more useful than AutoFormat.

Word also tries to make it easier to understand the contents of a large document, which can be useful if it has been written by someone else. You can, for example, click on the Tools menu and select AutoSummarize to view a dialogue box listing different ways to summarise the document.

You can specify the size of the summary, whether it should be displayed in a separate document or used to highlight points. Obviously, Word cannot read and understand a document; it can merely pick out headings and a few sentences.

If a document contains lots of headings, the resulting summary will be like a contents page. Beware of AutoSummarize omitting the last part of a document. Check the length of the summary in the AutoSummarize dialogue box.

Another method of summarising a large document is to look at the Document Map. This is found on the View menu and displays a list of the main headings (including headings in bold) in a separate pane down the left side of the screen.

The Document Map is also useful for selecting headings in the list and jumping to them in the main part of the document. While it reduces the width of the main document, the Document Map can be removed from the screen by returning to the View menu and deselecting it.

Columns, borders and shading
Creating newspaper-style columns is very easy in Word and is useful for creating newsletters. If you've already written the text, select it all by holding down Ctrl+A on the keyboard, click on the Format menu and choose Columns.

From the dialogue box that appears, you can specify the number of columns and the space between each column. Sometimes columns can be problematic, especially when you want text to start in a new column. By inserting a column break (click on the Insert menu, Break and choose Column break), this can be resolved.

Adding features to the text and pages in a Word document makes them look more professional. The Borders and Shading option is found in the Format menu and offers several options.

The Borders tab creates a frame around a selected paragraph. The Page Border tab can apply a border to every page or just one. The Shading tab can be applied to an entire paragraph, but not to the whole page; for that, see Format menu and select Background instead.

Instant corrections
When typing in Word, you may have noticed that capital letters are sometimes removed or added automatically. This is the job of AutoCorrect, which ensures that the first word in a new sentence starts with a capital letter.

It also corrects words when mistyping has resulted in the first two letters of a word appearing as capitals.

Its handiest feature comes into play when you make the mistake of pressing Caps Lock and forgetting to turn it off. When starting a new sentence with the Shift key down, the first letter of a word will appear with a lower case letter followed by upper case letters (for example hELLO).

Instead of having to retype the whole lot correctly, AutoCorrect can change the text to the proper case automatically.

Word has many more automatic correction features, including correcting spelling mistakes and grammar errors. If any of them start to annoy you, click on the Tools menu, select AutoCorrect and you can switch them off.

Making notes
Although you can create footnotes and endnotes in a Word document to annotate a page, an alternative is to add a comment. After selecting a piece of text or placing the cursor at a specific point in a document, click on the Insert menu and choose Comment.

The lower half of the screen will then allow you to enter some notes and even add a sound. Click on Close to return to the main part of the document. The selected text or a word near where the cursor was placed will be highlighted in yellow. Whenever the mouse pointer is held over the highlighted text, the comment will appear next to it.

Viewing all the comments in a document is made easier with a navigation feature in the bottom right corner of the screen. In between the scroll bar buttons is a small sphere-shaped button. Click on this for a palette of objects to look for (comments, headings, graphics).

After choosing one of these, you can then use the double-headed arrow buttons above and below the sphere to move through the document and find whatever you have selected.

Some exceptions with this feature include the Find option (this looks like a pair of binoculars) where you have to enter some text to look for, then close the Find dialogue box. Notice the double-headed arrow buttons turn blue unless you choose the page option.

Word is certainly packed with features to help with creating reports, letters and other documents. It hasn't quite revolutionised word processing, but it's certainly making it a lot easier and quicker.