MS Word: Ribbon, Shortcuts and Exam MCQs

MS Word is the word processing program of the Microsoft Office suite. A word processor is software used to type, edit, format, store and print text documents, and Word is the one every Computer Awareness paper builds its questions around. It was first released by Microsoft in 1983, and the questions asked about it are of a fixed kind: which tab holds a command, which extension a file is saved with, what a shortcut key does, and what the program's default setting is. Learn those four groups and the section is scoring.

The Word screen and the ribbon

From Word 2007 onwards the old menu bar and toolbars were replaced by the ribbon, a strip of tabs across the top. Each tab is divided into groups, and each group holds related commands. The File tab opens the Backstage view, where a document is created, opened, saved, printed and shared; in Word 2007 this was the round Office Button, and it became the File tab in Word 2010.

The standard tabs and what each is used for are worth memorising, because most questions are simply asking which tab a command sits in.

Files, extensions and defaults

Up to Word 2003 a document was saved with the extension .doc. From Word 2007 the default extension is .docx, a compressed XML based format. A template is saved as .dotx, a macro enabled document as .docm and a macro enabled template as .dotm. Word can also save or export a file as .rtf, .txt, .html or .pdf. Ctrl+S saves a document and F12 opens the Save As dialog box.

The defaults are asked directly. In Word 2007 to Word 2019 the default font is Calibri and the default font size is 11 points. The default margin on all four sides in the Normal setting is one inch. A new document opens with a single column and in Print Layout view. Font size can be set from 1 point to 1638 points, and the zoom control runs from 10 per cent to 500 per cent. The Office Clipboard can hold up to 24 items at a time.

Formatting text and paragraphs

Character formatting covers the font, its size, bold, italic, underline, colour, superscript, subscript, change case and highlighting, and all of it sits in the Font group of the Home tab. Paragraph formatting covers alignment, indent, line spacing, bullets, numbering and borders, and sits in the Paragraph group. The four alignments are left, centre, right and justify; justify spreads a line so that both margins are straight. The Format Painter, the paintbrush icon in the Clipboard group, copies formatting from one place to another, and a double click on it keeps it switched on for repeated use.

A red wavy underline marks a word the spelling checker does not recognise and a coloured wavy underline marks a grammar problem; F7 runs the spelling and grammar check and Shift+F7 opens the thesaurus. Word count appears on the status bar and in the Review tab.

Tables, page setup and mail merge

A table is inserted from the Insert tab and is made of rows and columns whose meeting point is a cell; the Tab key moves to the next cell and adds a new row at the end of the table. Page setup, that is margins, orientation (portrait or landscape), paper size and columns, is done from the Layout tab. A gutter margin is the extra space left on the binding side of a page. Ctrl+Enter inserts a page break so that the text after it starts on a new page. Headers, footers and page numbers are inserted from the Insert tab and repeat on every page.

Mail merge, on the Mailings tab, prints the same letter for many people. It needs two files: the main document, which holds the common matter, and the data source, which holds the list of names and addresses. Merge fields placed in the main document are filled from the data source, and the merge produces one personalised letter, label or envelope for each record.

The shortcut keys examiners ask

Two more are asked often: Ctrl+K inserts a hyperlink and Ctrl+P opens the print options. Revise the table above once a day for a week and the shortcut question in the paper is a free mark.