You are most probably using Microsoft Word now or will be using it in the future. It is one of the most popular word processors for Windows, so if you could learn some useful Microsoft Word tips, they could help speed up your productivity and speed up your work.
Even if you have become a veteran of Microsoft Word, we believe that some of the tips mentioned here will still be useful for you.
Paste Without Formatting
If you don't want the font to change from what you are currently using in your Word document, when you copy something from elsewhere, just copy it like usual and press Ctrl + Shift +V. This will make sure that any formatting such as text color, size, and font will not be included while the contents get pasted.
Clear Formatting
You can simply highlight the area from where you want to clear the formatting and click the Clear Formatting icon. Next to the letter A, this icon will look like a small eraser.
Then press Ctrl + A to highlight everything in the document and then click the Clear Formatting icon to clear the formatting on everything in your document.
Highlight an Area Of Text Quickly
You can click once to place the text cursor at the start of the area you would like to highlight, then hold shift and click at the end of the area you would like to highlight, instead of clicking and dragging to highlight an area of text in Microsoft Word.
Quickly Replace Multiple Mistakes
If you have made a small mistake for a word, for instance, writing "land mark" instead of "landmark", this can be fixed by using the find and replace.
The find and replace tool will open as you press Ctrl + F. Then just click on Replace and type in the word or phrase that you want to be replaced. Then type what you want the word or phrase to be replaced with.
Quickly Copy And Create Lists
If you have to go through a document and make a list from the words or phrases you picked out from it, instead of writing each item onto the list each time you see a word, you could simply highlight each word and press CTRL + F3. You can repeat this process till you have found each word/phrase.
After you are done with this you can just go to the area in the document that you would like the list to be created and press Ctrl + SHIFT + F3 and all the highlights will be pasted there. This feature is called Spike in Word.
You can then highlight the contents and use the numbering tools or bullets in the toolbar and turn it into a more ordered list.
Remove the Toolbar Ribbon
You can remove the toolbar ribbon sitting at the top of your document by pressing Ctrl + F1 and make your writing distraction-free. Then you can again press Ctrl + F1 to bring it back into view in case you need it.
Delete Words With One Key Press
You can hold CTRL and then press BACKSPACE if you need to delete a big chunk of the text.
Each time you press the BACKSPACE button one word will be deleted, instead of just one character and you can holt the CTRL and BACKSPACE buttons down to delete chunks of the text at great speed.
"Tell Me What You Want to Do"
Click the "Tell me what to do" shortcut at the top of the toolbar ribbon, if you are trying to find a function on Microsoft Word but cannot remember the shortcut or its location in the menus.
Here, you can then type the action that you would like to perform and get the answers to take advantage of. For instance, if you type "create a table", you will get some options for creating a table from your Word document itself.
Lookup a Word Quickly
You can use the Smart Lookup Tool if you are editing a Word document and need context. You can just highlight a word, right-click and then click Smart Lookup.
Now, a small panel will be opened that contains information relating to the word.
Disable Spelling and Grammar Check
You already know that you can just right-click on a word with a spelling error and click 'Add to Dictionary'. If you are using abbreviations or fictional words, this becomes a very handy feature. But, if you want to turn off the grammar and spelling checks completely, you can also do that.
If you want to disable grammar and spelling for one document, just click on File, then Options, then click Proofing. Then tick both the options for hiding spelling and grammar mistakes in the document you are writing currently.
These are a few of the features of Microsoft Word that will speed up and smoothen your MS Word experience.
