Formatting Text: Making your document look attractive is one of the most fun parts of using a word processor.“Find and replace” is a tool that will be particularly handy for revising documents. Text Basics: Cutting, copying, pasting, and deleting are all reviewed here.Saving and Sharing: The ever-important “Save” feature is going to be your new best friend in college.Visit each of the links below to review important features and uses of Microsoft Word: Basic Skills You can view the transcript for “Word: Getting Started” here (opens in new window). Let’s start by reviewing the program as a whole, and what it’s capable of. Once inside the document, familiarize yourself with the various tools to help you format your paper. Some of these may be useful for your classes, particularly newsletters, brochures, and resumes, but you will most frequently be working in a simple Word Document. When you first open Microsoft Word, you’ll be given the option to choose from various templates. Similar to OpenOffice, you download this software directly to your computer. This is software you download on your computer, so you don’t have to be online to use it. You’ll need to register with an account, but can then access your saved files from any internet-connected device. You can also download files to work on offline, and they will automatically sync when you go online again. Connected to a Gmail / Google personal account, this flexible tool lets you access your saved files from any internet-connected device. Here are some free options to explore as an alternative to Word: Google’s Google Docs and Apple’s Pages, are two other widely-used examples. Otherwise, you’re free to use whatever program you wish. Some classes will explicitly require you to use Microsoft Word for your classwork. Word is the most common word processor, but it’s expensive, especially if it didn’t come with your computer.

Most college computer labs have this program available, and you can sometimes purchase it for a reduced rate through your college bookstore or campus technology center. The most popular word-processing program is Microsoft Word, part of the Microsoft Office Suite. Mastering the basics of word-processing tools will make this process much more comfortable to do. Most writing you do for college will need to be typed, and often submitted electronically. Understand how to access and use word-processing tools.

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