Of all the different Microsoft Office applications, Word is perhaps the most commonly used. It has an extremely rich feature set; one that allows you to achieve all kinds of things with your text and imagery. To realise its true potential, though, you’ll need to delve a little deeper than the Font and Paragraph sections.
Below are a few of the lesser known yet rather useful features of Microsoft’s trusty word processing tool.
The Clipboard Panel
Copy & paste is a feature we all use from time to time; it helps us save valuable minutes by making it possible to collate and shuffle sentences, paragraphs and individual words. What many people don’t realise, though, is that you can handle multiple sections of text at one time. Using the Clipboard Panel feature, you can actually store as many as 24 pieces of text to paste as and when you like.
Once in the Home tab, move the cursor to the Clipboard section, and expand it by clicking the arrow button in the bottom right corner. You should see a new panel showing everything you’ve copied recently.
Remove the Ribbon
The bar that runs across the top of your Word window is crucial as it houses all of the features you need to be productive. That’s not to say you need to see it all of the time, though.
If you press Ctrl + F1, the Ribbon will disappear from view, leaving you to concentrate on your work in peace. The next time you need something, simply click the relevant tab and it should show again. In Office 2013, you can also tweak this feature by clicking the Ribbon Display Option button.
Add a screenshot
This one is pretty self-explanatory but it can be extremely useful. Inserting a screenshot can be a great way to illustrate your text and support the message you’re trying to get across, especially if you’re producing a tutorial. Most people would find the window they want to copy and press the Print Screen button, but there is a quicker way.
Go to the Insert tab at the top of the screen and click on Screenshot; it should give you the choice of what you want to paste into your document. You can even just take a section of that page with the handy Screen Clipping tool.
When used regularly, the tips above can help even the most seasoned Word user to save valuable time as they work. These are only a few examples as well – there are plenty more handy features to uncover if you take the time to look.
