Common errors that people make when using Word

SafeBytes Software

One of the most well-known productivity suites out there is without a doubt Microsoft Office.The whole suite saw its origin in 1988, and it was initially just a marketing term for a bundle of software that could be used in order to perform certain tasks. And contained only 3 programs: Word, Excel and an early version of PowerPoint.

As the years have gone by the suite has been updated and refined, and now includes a veritable plethora of applications, including:

·         Word: A word processing software that is both easy to use and incredibly powerful, depending on the level of expertise that the user possesses.·         Excel: A spreadsheet that includes calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.·         PowerPoint: Initially named “Presenter” and created by Forethought Inc, it is a slideshow presentation program. Has seen its use decline in recent years, making way to more involved and creative presentation software such as Prezi.·         Access: A database management system (DBMS). As such, it requires specialised knowledge.·         Outlook: Although mainly used as a mail client, Outlook is actually a Personal Information Manager, and includes features such as a calendar, task manager, contact manager, note taking, journal, and web browsing.

·         OneNote: A free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration program. It gathers users' notes (handwritten or typed), drawings, screen clippings and audio commentaries.·         Sway: A presentation program, it allows users (who need to have a Microsoft account) to combine both text and media in order to create a presentable website. These are stored in Microsoft’s servers, and users can add content from various sources.

In this article, we will take a look at the first item on that list: Word. More specifically, we will be looking at some of the most common errors people make when using the program and how to avoid them.

When creating templates:

·         Customising Word’s default template. This might work for you for a while, after all, making these changes makes sure that they will be there as soon as you start Word and allow you to begin writing immediately. That is until the next update rolls around and it restores the default template.·         Base a new template on “Normal”. You can open a blank document, make the changes and then save it as a template, but this could have repercussions that might not be immediately apparent. Namely, every customisation you’ve applied to “Normal” is now in any new template you make.

·         Base a new template on an existing document. It is rather tempting to simply taking a document that you have customised to your every need and remove all content, then proceed to save it as a template, but that has the same repercussions as items 1 and 2.

How to create a template:

·         Click the File menu. Choose New in the left pane. In later versions of Word, choose New from the File menu.·         Click My Templates in the Available Templates section. In later versions of Word, click On My Computer in the New Document task pane.·         In the resulting dialog, click Blank Document.·         Then, click Template in the Create New section - don't skip this step!·         Click OK.

Applying a template.

This is another common error: people open the template file and then save it as a .doc. The process of applying a template is a bit more involved:·         Click the File menu and choose New from it.·         There are many template folders available. Look for the folder that contains the one you’d like to use.

·         In the resulting dialog, select a template.·         Then, click Document in the Create New section.·         Click OK. Give your new document a name and start adding content. All of the customizations you added to your template will be available to your new document (doc) file.Not knowing the most useful keyboard shortcuts and selection commands.We have covered some of these keyboard shortcuts before (both for Microsoft applications and for Windows in general). The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of these, too many to mention in this article, in fact. A quick internet search (or a look through our blog’s archives) will lead you to the most commonly used ones.

Not using the tab key for formatting.This technically counts as a keyboard shortcut of sorts, but it is so useful that we thought it should have its own item. A lot of people try to format the document by using the spacebar, which more often than not ends up having wonky spacing. You will find that using the tab key will allow you to properly space anything to Word’s grid, from bullet points in lists to entire paragraphs.

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