CIS-100Chapter 4—Creating your First Document

The Word Document

When you open Word, you see a blank document. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it takes up most of the space on the screen.

A blinking cursor indicates where you can begin typing.

Just Start Typing

Word waits for you to start typing. The insertion point, a blinking vertical line in the upper-left corner of the page, tells you where the content you type will appear on the page. The blank spaces to the left and above the insertion point are margins, which you'll learn more about later in the course. If you start to type now, the page will begin to fill, starting in the upper-left corner.

Paragraph Formatting

You can see what's going on by looking at the formatting marks Word automatically inserts as you type. These marks are always in documents, but they are invisible until you display them.

 To see formatting marks, use the Ribbon,

at the top of the window. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Show/Hide button . Click the button again to hide formatting marks.

What are those Underlines in my Document?

Red underline    This indicates either a possible spelling error or that Word doesn't recognize a word, such as a proper name or place. If you type a word that is correctly spelled, but Word doesn't recognize it, you can add it to Word's dictionary so that it is not underlined in the future.

Green underline Word thinks that grammar should be revised.

Blue underline    A word is spelled correctly but does not seem to be the correct word for the sentence. For example, you type "too," but the word should be "to."

Changing Page Margins

Page margins are the blank spaces around the edges of the page. There is a 1-inch (2.54 cm) page margin at the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the page. This is the most common margin width, which you might use for most of your documents.

But if you want different margins, you should know how to change them, which you can at any time. When you type a very brief letter, for example, or a recipe, an invitation, or a poem, you might like different margins.

Saving Your Document

To keep your work, you have to save it, and it's never too early to do that.

Click the Microsoft Office Button in the upper-left corner of the window. Then click Save. A dialog box opens. A dialog box is a smaller window in which you perform some action. You use this box to tell Word where you want to store the document on your computer, and what you want to call it.

Making Changes to Your DocumentTo work quickly and efficiently in the

document, you need to know how to move around the insertion point, which shows you where the text you type will be inserted. You can use either the mouse or the keyboard to get to where you want to make a change.

Moving around Your DocumentThere are different ways to move the insertions point:   With your mouse, move the pointer just to the left of

"During," and then click to insert the insertion point. Once you start typing, the existing text moves to the right as you enter the new sentence.

  Press the UP ARROW key on your keyboard to move

the insertion point up one line at a time. Then press the LEFT ARROW key to move the insertion point left, one character at a time. Or press CTRL+LEFT ARROW to move left one word at a time.

Selecting and Deleting Text

To delete text, first select what you want to delete. You can do this by using the mouse or the keyboard.

 Place your pointer over the word "really" and then double-click the word.

Or click in front of "really," hold down the left mouse button, and then drag the pointer over the word.

 OR With the arrow keys on your keyboard, move the insertion point next to

the text. Then hold down the SHIFT key and press the arrow key that moves the insertion point in the correct direction until all the text is selected.

 Once "really" is selected, delete the word by pressing DELETE on your

keyboard.

Moving Text

 Select the text you want to move.  Click Cut.  Place the insertion point where you

want the text to appear.  Click Paste.

Undoing Changes

  Undo button on the Quick Access Toolbar.

 Actions to undo: Paste and Cut.

Using the Scroll Bar

Perhaps you have a long document that you'd like to read all the way through without having to continuously press the arrow keys to move the insertion point. You can do that by scrolling, using the scroll bar.