Chances are, you already know to create a document in Microsoft Word. It can be as simple as “open new document,” and then, well, starting to type. But is that all you need to know? There are so many options in Microsoft Word, so many other projects you can create. By just knowing how to type out a document, you definitely are not reaching your full potential for you or your career. As Steven Patterson, owner of Florence, Kentucky’s The ACTS Learning Center explains, the benefits of knowing Microsoft Word are endless. You can improve productivity, efficiency, marketing, and more for you, your job, and your entire company.
Especially with newer versions of Microsoft Word, there are many options beyond simple typing – options that you will likely never learn without some sort of tutorial or class. This is because many of these options are not a necessity, but they can be advantages once you can master them.
As far as basic documents, you should know how to do more than just type. You should know how to properly format the document, so you can have formats other than the guidelines automatically set up. You also need to know how to work with the auto formatting and auto correction tools that the newer versions or Word come with. These tools may automatically change a preference you have made in your typing or formatting, but you may need that preference. You need to know how to turn off or work around these automatic corrections so Word doesn’t get the best of your document. Remember, Word is a tool meant to make your life easier. But it can actually make things more complicated unless you know how to use its different aspects.
You also need to know document tools like inserting a header, footer, link, image, chart, graph, footnote, index, cross-reference, etc. Your document may need more than just a body of words, and Word has the capability to far beyond that. You can make columns, you can merge two documents to be one, you can create a brochure or website content. You can save a sales letter template to pull up whenever you need to draft a new one. You can Auto Summarize a document, to paraphrase the copy and highlight key points. And that’s only the beginning. You would be amazed at the contribution Word can make to a business when it is used to its fullest extent. You can create advanced documents that set you apart from other companies, that make the day more efficient, that allow more to be fit into the day since you’re not taking so much time to manually create such features or figure out to achieve a certain effect.
There are even features and processes of Word that aren’t exactly contained in Word itself. For example, let’s say a co-worker e-mails you a spreadsheet created on Excel, but you need to turn that report into a body of text instead of a chart. You can actually transfer the information from the table into a Word document. You can also turn your Word documents into PDF files so they are more set in stone, and that way they are protected from unwanted changes if you need to send them to colleagues. Speaking of which, you can e-mail a document right from Word, without having to even go into your e-mail system!
You may be able to learn some simpler steps of Microsoft Word on your own, just by doing some exploring. However, that can take longer than necessary and can be a waste of time if you do not learn the proper method or do not learn a way that actually sticks with you. Furthermore, certain features and processes are either too complicated or too hard to “explore,” and these really make a class in Word worth your while. You will learn all there is know about Microsoft Word, and in a timely manner that leave you confident you know Word in and out, and can create just about anything just the way you want it.
