Microsoft Word Blog

Stuck with a pesky column in your Microsoft Word document and no matter where you highlight, press delete or right-click it just won’t go away? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Removing a column from your Microsoft Word document isn’t something that can be done through the margin lines at the top and bottom of…

If you are working on a text heavy document, or would like to make better use of your page by splitting it in half adding a column is your answer. Columns split your page into a newspaper style layout, the text will run down two or three narrow columns which can be useful if you…

You’ve successfully added columns to your Microsoft Word Document, but the column width and standard layout just aren’t right… Rather than trying to make your document fit perfectly into the standard columns provided by Word, why not customise them? Changing the width of each column to perfectly suit the needs of your document. Microsoft does…

Headers and footers are the top and bottom margins of your document, they can be updated with text or images to give your document a heading, date or authors name. Although the list of reasons you may want to use a header or footer is endless, the most common one is to add a date…

The Footer refers to the text or images placed in the bottom margin of your Microsoft Word Document. They are an easy way to insert page numbers or add important information, such as the author’s name to the bottom of every page. Microsoft offers a number of different footer templates for users to choose from,…

Using Headers and footers in Microsoft Word make displaying important information about your document easy. A footer is the text or image that sits in bottom margin on every page of your Word document. If you are trying to add a footer to your Word Document check out our post on how to do so…

The document you are working on has an old or out of date Header, lucky you noticed before sending it on for review, but why is it so hard to figure out how to update the Header in Microsoft Word? The Header is a margin that sits at the top of your Word Document. It…

A footer refers to the bottom margin of your document. Microsoft offers you the ability to place text (or images) in the footer, by doing so this will be repeated across all pages. Footers are most commonly used to insert page numbers or details about the document such as the authors name, documents title, date…

If you are working on a multi-page document and would like a logo to be visible at the top of each page or any descriptive information, a header is the perfect option. Most commonly used to add page numbers, a header can also be used to insert the document name, company logo, authors name or…

A page header is text that is separate to the body text and will appear at the top of your Microsoft Word document. Often used to display information such as the document name, date or pages number on multi-page documents. Headers can be very helpful when you are working on long reports, but they do…

When you turn on Tracked Changes in Microsoft Word, Word will automatically track all text, formatting and ink changes for you. Tracking all changes is a handy way to show your colleagues what you have updated in the document, leaving the document owner to manage these changes, accepting and rejecting them before they are saved…

The Change Bar is the column that automatically appears on the right-hand side of your document when you turn on tracked changes in Microsoft Word. In the change bar, you can clearly see all tracked changes and their author, the information in the change bar will show any changes in line with where the change…

While most of us are used to seeing our tracked changes in Microsoft Word appear as bold, red mark-ups did you know you have the creative control to track your changes in almost any colour? You may want to change the styling of your tracked changes to show your individual markups more clearly, it might…

When you turn on tracked changes in Word, Microsoft seems to think you automatically want everything tracked. This includes every word you update, every sentence you remove, every paragraph you create and even every time you change the formatting in the document. Now, it’s not that we don’t completely appreciate Word keep a track of…

Tracked changes is a feature used by most working professionals when collaborating in Microsoft Word. The feature allows you to keep an eye on any changes you or a colleague make to a document, highlighting them in red before they are then accepted by the document owner. If you are having trouble turning tracked changes…

Wildcards or Wild Characters are symbols that represent one or more letter, used to extend your word search beyond just the word itself. You can use Wildcards to search for words that start with and end with a particular letter or all that start with a certain series of letters such as ‘Doc*’. They can…

You have a document, that required different formats for the page numbers and can’t quite figure out how to make this work. Microsoft Words default page number setting is to give you the same style of the page number on every page. You may want to make your content or index pages numbered i, ii,…

When working on a long Microsoft Word Document, or a document that required a table of contents and page numbers to reference selecting the right format for your page numbers can assist your reader in navigating with ease. Microsoft Word offers multiple different page number formats for you to select from, including numbers, letters –…

Using the Find and Replace tool in Microsoft work is easy, when you are just replacing one word with another (post on how to do so here). Replacing formatting in Word is one of the trickiest things you’ll come across. You may have been asked to change all of the underlined words to italics, or…

Adding page numbers to a Microsoft Word document make the document easier for your reader to navigate. Page numbers facilitate the reader’s ability to search for a particular page or topic and move directly to that part of your document following the referenced page number. Page numbers partnered with a table of contents on the…

You’ve created a new proposal, agreement, contract or document that required page numbers to make it easy for a ready to find a particular section of the file. This is where page numbers come in handy, they make for very easy referencing and navigation within a document, especially when paired with a table of contents…

If you have a long Word document that is going to be shared once finalised, adding page numbers gives readers a simple way to navigate through the document, skipping over pages or sections that may not be as relevant to them. Sometimes you need to re-start your page numbers mid-document. If your document has sub-sections…

When collaborating on a Microsoft Word Document with your collegues, sharing the document as updates are made or reviews are required is a continuous part of the collaborative process. There are a number of ways to share a Word Document, although still commonly used, the old email back and forth is a method that has…

Often when working in Microsoft Word we only need to change one or two words in the file to make it relevant to another client or project. For Example, updating a client’s name in a 30-page contract or updating the address of a company or speakers name in a briefing document. Because scrolling through your…

There are many reasons that you may need to compare two Microsoft Word Documents. Maybe you have ended up with two different versions of the same document due to simultaneously editing, or you work in the legal profession and are required to create a legal backline document. For whatever reason, you have two or more…

You have been working in a draft version of your Microsoft Word and placed a watermark across the document to make it clear to all readers and collaborators that the document was still in its draft format. Now that the document has been finalised you are ready to remove the watermark. Removing the watermark will…

When you receive a document from a lawyer, agent, banking institution or even just a colleague and they have a DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL watermark plastered across the background you quickly get the message that this document is, as stated, confidential. Watermarking is a great way to label your document, in an obvious way so that…

A watermark is a faded image or text, that sits across the contents of a document. Watermarks can be used to indicate what stage the document is in, draft, confidential, final copy etc. Some companies even use watermarking as a way to add their company logo onto the background of a document to avoid copyright…

What is redlining? When you track changes in a Microsoft Word document, a redline will appear under the text that you have made the change too. This is called redlining. Redlining makes it easy for another reader to note which parts of the documents you have made changes too and what the changes were, its…

Dictating text, as in speaking and having the text typed out on your behalf by the computer or devise can save you a lot of time and your fingers from typing fatigue. Microsoft Word has a dictate feature, that does just this, allows you to speak to your computer (granted your computer microphone is on…

Real-time co-authoring is something that came to life with Microsoft’s Office 2016, although co-authoring is available to those with Office 2013-2015 as well, it was in 2016 that they introduced the real-time feature, which was a bit of a game-changer. Co-authoring a document means you can share a document with people within or outside of…

What is focus mode? Focus mode will hide the taskbar and the ribbon at the top of your document, leaving just the Word Document itself showing. Focus mode was built with the intention of removing any distractions from the document so that you can focus on writing and creating in Word. Turning on Focus mode…

When working in Microsoft Word we sometimes find ourselves with a pesky blank white page at the end or even in the middle of our document or you have a long document and would like a quick shortcut to find a particular page to quickly remove it from the document. Leaving the blank page in…

We’ve all seen that one Microsoft Wizard at work in the office, the guy who knows shortcuts that we’d swear not even Microsoft know about yet. It’s amazing to watch and we can’t help ourselves but be a little bit jealous that we don’t know near half the shortcuts he does. How easy his working…

You’ve created a huge list in Microsoft Word, a list so long that without some sort of sorting or system it would be impossible to find the single line item you are searching for without scanning the entire document. This is where sorting and, in this case, alphabetizing your list can really help! Alphabetizing a…

Dark mode is a new supplemental mode available to devices with macOS Mojave (10.14), released in 2018 or later. Any Mac devices using older versions of macOS or OS X such as Sierra and High Sierra, unfortunately, cannot access the dark mode feature. Dark mode was designed to reduce the strain on a reader’s eyes…

You’ve seen those cool tick symbols used in Microsoft Word Documents in the past but can’t quite figure out how to insert one yourself. You’re now alone. Nearly all of us know what they are but other than the old copy + paste of the tick image many of us are baffled as to how…

It’s a common question, in the case of Microsoft Word and Google Docs, which program is more superior and why? While they both look family similar at a glance, there are a number of differences between them. They vary in how much security they offer and cost as well as the ability to collaborate and…

The heart-sinking feeling when you exit a document and realise you didn’t press ‘save’. The document is now gone, into the ibis and you have frantically googled ‘how to recover a lost Word document’. Or you know that forgetting to press save is something you’ve done in the past, so this time you didn’t forget….

Often when you are working in Microsoft Word you find yourself needing to reference another document, webpage or source. Linking to such locations is now easy with Words ‘link’ feature. If you are looking to link a public source such as an online file, shared document or media file anybody viewing the document, the link…

If you are referencing to another Word document from another one of your Word Documents, you will be required to link to this document. Placing a link in your Word Documents makes it easy for the reader to acquire additional information on a certain point, that you have already written a piece on that topic….

There are a number of reasons you may want to know how much time you’ve spent on a Microsoft Word Document. The most common is to track billable hours or to update timesheets for a project. Microsoft Word does have a built-in feature that will tell you how long you have been ‘working’ on a…

Adding a table of contents to the start of your Microsoft Word document can make navigating through the file a lot easier for any readers. It works as a reference point, at the beginning of the document allowing the reader to find the specific information they are looking for without scanning the entire document’s text…

Adding a table of contents to your Word Documents makes it easier for your reader to navigate. Once you have the table of contents in your Word Document there are a number of reasons you may wish to update it. If you some of the information you wanted to be visible in your table of…

The table of contents should be placed at the start of your document and serves two purposes: Allows readers to find a specific section within the document with easy and gives them an overview of the document’s content and layout. The table of content is there to orient the reader, think of it as a…

Whether you’re collaborating with your team on a Microsoft Word Document or you’ve ended up with two versions of your own work, you are now trying to find the best way to compare these two documents in a swift and easy manner. Luckily, there are 4 different ways that you can compare Microsoft Word Documents….

It is common practice to work collaboratively within a Microsoft Word Document. Sending it back and forth between team members, as each individual makes their suggested changes before distributing it further. This can be a painstaking process and often leads to more work trying to merge documents together (how to post on Merging Word Documents)…

If you are someone that works with Microsoft Word a lot, you have probably come across a time when it would have been very convenient to merge a few Microsoft Word documents together, creating a single master file. Merging is possible via the manual process of copy-and-paste, although its not very intuitive. Microsoft does offer…

If you are collaborating on a Microsoft Word Document with others and two people make edits at the same time, you may need to merge these two documents together. Most Microsoft Word users find the quickest way to combined Word Documents is to manually copy and paste them into one. This is no longer the…

Tracked Changes is a helpful feature in Microsoft Word that allows you to keep track of any edits you make when collaborating on a document with others. Sometimes you may need to copy part or all of the text from a document and paste it onto another file, carrying across the tracked changes. Now that…