Microsoft Word was first introduced in 1983 and was soon to be crowned the one and only Word processor/editor you will ever associate with writing on a computer. Since then, Word documents have become synonymous with just writing. 

It has soon become the sensation we all know and love nowadays. Still, it is constantly in development, and something new is added to the Microsoft Office Suite with every update. 

Word especially has it rough because the competition from Google Docs, Grammarly, or other similar word processors is not sleeping, and they’re still out there, looking to dethrone the king. With that in mind, we’ve decided to present a go-over of the most important features of MS Word and a few that you may never hear about. Let’s dive in!

Microsoft Word Document is essentially the everyday blank page you had in school. Just hop on and write your best essay. And it’s pretty much it. Everything in between is just an additional element you can but don’t have to use.

Although - you can use some of them to your advantage. The basic use of Microsoft Word is to create and edit some of the most common things ever created, like letters, email, books, and invoices. You can create a CV with Word, write a novel or just make some notes for your paper.

Additionally, you can add images, create charts or diagrams, and decide what kind of page layout you want to have. The same goes for changing the font, adding a heading or two, creating bullet points, and overall everything you think you can do with a single piece of paper. Let’s now go into some details about the most basic Microsoft Word features.

Here, we’re going to look at the most basic features you can use while creating your document with Microsoft Word. Let’s begin.

File

File Tab is all about saving existing documents, creating new ones, sharing, and using the doc file overall. It’s basically the governing of the document that goes on in this tab.

Home

Clicking on this will show you a whole array of different features you can use in your writing. You can change the font color, font size, font style, add alignment to your text, spacing, pointers, or underline some parts of your document, etc. The Home tab is the everyday toolkit to do the essential elements of your writing.

Insert

This one is a bit more complicated as it lets you add stuff to Word documents. Insert tab is very useful when you have to do more complicated work than just writing. Here, you can add tables, and images, choose a header, footer, or even add a page number. 

In some of the newer versions of Microsoft Word, you can add some 3D models and work on them. Also - you get a Wikipedia link and an advanced SmartArt tool that allows you to create customized pointers or tables that will enhance how your document looks.

Drawing

As the name suggests, you can draw with tools in this tab. It’s pretty much self-explanatory. You can choose different brushes and different colors to paint something in your doc file. It allows you to create an image with it or just highlight something in the document. Keep in mind that Microsoft Word isn’t software used for drawing, so the possibilities are limited in that regard.

Design

Design Tab is all about formatting templates. Create your own, or just choose one from the large variety of templates. You can also add a watermark or even completely change the color of the page.

Page Layout

Here you can change how you want your blank document to look. Add some margins and columns if you wish, change the spacing, indentation, lines, and orientation, and make this document your own. Page Layout tab lets you edit documents before adding any words to the page.

References

References Tab is one of the more important tabs in the whole document. Especially if you use Word for writing your paper or thesis and you need to make everything look exactly the same as they told you at University. So, you have all the important elements here - citations, footnotes, captions, create a bibliography, and your table of contents. Literally, every single thing needed for writing a paper can be found in this tab.

Mailings

You can send your work to other people via email. You can also customize your account and add a personal signature to it.

Review

This one is handy when you’re checking out what you have written in the end. It will do a spell check and word count grammar. There is also a thesaurus for you to check if there are any better ways to describe something. Also, the review tab has the comment section that is extremely important when reviewing docs and sending them to others. It’s one of the most advanced elements of the whole process.

View

The view tab is used mostly for your pleasure. You can define what kind of focus you want to add to your document and other important stuff. It’s a beneficial tool, although you will probably use it only once every time, as people mostly use the default tab settings. It is also useful if you have trouble viewing anything. Then, you can add contrast and other elements or just enhance everything you see.

Now that we have the most basic features out of the way, let’s focus on what’s important. Those features are used mostly by the advanced users who know every single keyboard shortcut there is to know and have mastered line spacing to the ungodly level. With that in mind, let’s find out the secrets of Microsoft Word.

Clipboard Panel

With such high hopes, it’s only fair to start with the lovely Clipboard Panel. It’s very useful if you have a lot of things to carry from point A to point B. It’s usually situated in the top left corner of the document. It can remember up to 24 copy and paste actions, so you know that it’s a mating made in heaven for anyone interested in some copying and pasting.

Translate

The first thing you need to know is that it is not perfect in any shape or form. It will not be admissible anywhere and you can forget about giving it to your teacher so they can grade it. But, as an additional element to let you better understand what was written in a particular place at a particular time, it works quite well. With dozens of languages, you can switch between them with ease. If you don’t have Google translate at hand, It’s a fine alternative.

Charts

If you’ve ever wanted to insert a chart into your Word Document and, for some reason (we know the reason), you didn’t want to go to Excel to do so, there is also a chart option available in Word. Go to Insert->Chart and you can create your very own Word chart. You can tweak it as you like and add anything you want to it. It’s pretty useful for smaller projects, but for something more significant - you’ll need Excel.

Similar Formatting

It’s a very useful tool for anyone who has written more than a few paragraphs in their life. Sometimes, especially if you’re copy-pasting something, you can get a little flustered with formatting. If that happens, you can just go to the Home Tab and click “Select all text with similar formatting.” That way, you will be able to highlight everything that looks similar and just format it all in a single click.

Kerning

Kerning is the selective adjustment of spacing between characters to make the text more aesthetically pleasing. The true answer is that it just makes the text look clean and neat. If you want to access it, just click the Home tab and the box “Kerning for fonts.” You can also press ctrl + D for short (cmd + D on Macs). It will open up the fonts menu from which you can adjust the kerning as well.

Insert Screenshot

This one is really useful when writing articles for the internet. Of course, you’ll need to keep in mind the web layout, but overall, adding a Screenshot is very useful in this case. To do so, you just need to select Insert -> Screenshot. That way a menu will open and let you import windows you have opened as images straight into your Word document.

Insert Quick Parts

The same thing goes for creating articles with repeating elements like dates in the case of any official documents or addresses when writing a letter. You can create one by going to Insert -> Quick Parts -> AutoText -> Save Selection To AutoTextGallery. Now you have your very own phrase that you can insert into any document by picking it up from the AutoText menu!

SmartArt

For creating graphical documents - Smart Art is the way to go. You can choose from more than 200 layouts to create cycles, pyramids, and other amazingly looking elements that will enrich your document. If you want to check it out, go to Insert -> SmartArt and choose what you find interesting for your article.

Hyphenation

Have you ever wondered how they did those hyphenated words? Well, you can just simply go to the Page Layout Tab and enable it. Select Hyphenation there and put it in Automatic. That way, you’ll be able to get rid of those pesky islands at the end of your verses.

Watermark

Another great addition to an already great collection. Watermark is stable in the current office environment, and you can create your own in your Word document. Just get to the Page Layout tab, select Watermark, and add whatever you need. There are some templates, but you can create a custom one as well.

Digital Signature

With this Word addition, you can add a digital signature to your document and a personal encryption key to it. To do so, go to File and select Protect Document, then - Add a digital signature and you’re ready to go. 

How does it work in practice? Well, it stays there as long as no one added any changes to the document. When that happens, the signature is invalid, and the document loses the authenticity guarantee.

Outline View

This one is beneficial if you’re creating a bigger document, like a scientific paper or a novel. By using the Outline view, you can divide the formatted text into parts, sections, subsections, etc. To do it, go to View -> Outline. It will show you a display where you can highlight headings and create sections.

Citations

And there is no citation needed for that. This one can help you out in your academic efforts. To add a citation, go to the References tab, and click the Manage Sources button. There, you can insert any references you need by just simply clicking Insert Citation. With 14 styles to choose from, you’ll find something for yourself.

Insert Index

Another “classic” tool for longer formats. It will automatically create an index if you mark all your references in the document and select the proper word connected to it. In the index, there will be created links to the references that will get immediately updated after you’ll make some changes to it.

Page Color

You can also change how the color of your page looks for some unusual action. To do so, go to the Design tab and simply click on what kind of color you want your page to be. Just remember: It’s not possible to write black on black, so remember to find the right color for your work.

Document Inspector

This will help you out with accidentally leaking some metadata you really did not want to leak. If you want to share a file that may contain some sensitive information you don’t want to share with the document, just simply go to File and pick the “Prepare for sharing” option. That way, you’ll be able to keep anything secret under wraps.

Combine and Compare Documents

It’s sometimes necessary to check out between two versions of the same document to see what kind of changes have been made, especially when someone forgot to click on the Review mode. So, to do so, you can go to Review and select Compare. You can also go to View -> View Side by Side option to position the documents next to each other. That way, you can manually see if anything has been modified since you last saw the document.

There is a lot more of where it came from, but we need to stop at some point. After all, Word has thousands of features, and we’re only scratching the surface here in the end. As you can see, it’s a very complicated software that many people don’t know that much about. If they did, the number of competitors with apps suited for only one thing would not be popular at all. 

With advanced Microsoft Word options, you can be assured that whatever you need to do, you can surely do it on your own. Especially nowadays, it’s a great treat to get yourself an Office CD key at an affordable price.

Thank you for checking out our article about the best features of Microsoft Word. It really was a pleasure to do so!

As it turns out, Microsoft Word is still an incredible software that you can use for so many things, it’s just mindblowing. Anyways, remember to check out our other articles and if you have any suggestions on topics we should do next - let us know!