Why Use Your Word Processor
Like A Typewriter?

Contributed by Jay Schroyer

Word processors have presented writers with a great gift. They can now spend a lot more time on the substance of their writing rather than worrying about how to get it down on paper. What else can check your spelling, your grammar, search and replace a name that you decided to change halfway through the story, and store your 500+ page book in milliseconds where it is accessible at the click of a button. Word processors worry about all of the unpleasant stuff so that writers can concentrate on creating.

That's why it's still amazing to hear stories about writers searching for the correct spelling of a word in a dictionary, scrolling through their text and manually replacing character names, or deleting and retyping whole pages because they wanted to move a certain occurrence to later on in the story. They don't even think of peering into the word processing help function for fear of entering the unknown or wasting time learning something they'll use once and forget how to do. All of these things can be done at the touch of a button with word processors leaving more time for writing. Here are a few ideas that can come in handy for everyday writing. You will find them applicable to Microsoft® Word as it seems to have become the industry standard for word processing.

Copy, Cut, Paste
Learning to move around phrases, full sentences, and even whole paragraphs will save you a lot of time when editing or flushing out ideas. Simply highlight the area you want to copy or move and press the "Control" button and "C" to copy or "X" to cut. Move your cursor to where you would like to relocate your chosen phrase and press "Control" and the letter "V" to paste it in place. You can also access these options under the "Edit" menu at the top of the screen or by right-clicking your mouse on the highlighted area. A menu will appear featuring these options among others. Try "Control" and the letter "F" if you need to replace multiple instances of a word or phrase in a lengthy document. The dialog box that appears is very intuitive and easy to use. In one box, simply type in what you want Word to search for and in the other, what you want Word to replace that word or words with.

Dictionary/Thesaurus/Grammar/Word Count
Wouldn't it be great to have a resource that offered all of these features at the touch of a button? You already have access to them if you have Word. Under the "Tools" menu, you will find "Spelling and Grammar," a "Language" menu that leads to a "Thesaurus," and a "Word Count" feature.

There's a couple of ways you can go about spell checking words or the entire document. If you highlight a specific word, sentence, or paragraph and choose the spelling option, Word will only check the highlighted area. If you want Word to check the entire document, simply choose the "Spelling and Grammar" option and Word will go to work. You can also have Word check your spelling and grammar as you type by choosing the "Options" feature at the bottom of the "Tools" menu. A dialog box will appear with assorted tabs. Choose "Spelling and Grammar" to get a list of features that can be turned on and off by clicking inside the boxes directly to the left.

The "Thesaurus" option usually brings up a window on the right side of the screen which will stay open until you close it. If you use the thesaurus often, this is a good panel to leave accessible so that you can type in words and receive results instantly.

The word count feature is also helpful if you're shooting for a specific amount of words in a document. Like the spelling feature, Word Count works in the same manner in that if you highlight an area, it will only count the words that are highlighted. To count the entire document, simply choose the Word Count option.

Zoom In & Out
This is a great feature that will aid you in maneuvering about your document if your mouse features a scroll wheel. Hold in the "Control" key and use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out on the document. Scrolling up should enlarge the document view up to 500% and scrolling down will minimize the view to as small as 10% for documents with multiple pages. Without this option, you need to either access the "View" menu to "Zoom" or access the zoom percentage in your toolbar at the top of the screen if you've added that feature to your toolbar.

Toolbar
Load your toolbar with all of the items you use frequently. Bold, italic, and underline are always a good bet, but if you do a lot of scientific or technical writing perhaps superscript and subscript would be helpful. Add the alignment keys to instantly move text left, center, flush right, or justified. Throw on the bullet button if you make a lot of lists in your writing. By clicking on the right side of your current toolbar, you will access a drop-down menu that features the "Add or Remove Buttons" command. Use this to customize your toolbar to your needs. If you run into trouble, check out a free Word tutorial online or access the "Type a question for help" box at the top right of the screen.

The more you learn about Word, the quicker and more efficient you will become on the computer which allows more of your time and effort to go into your writing. Whether it's work or personal, we can all benefit from becoming one with our word processors. A lot of people say that there's nothing like writing on a pad with a pen or pencil, but I say no matter what the end result, you're still going to have to typeset it for printing and ease of distribution. Why not start with the easiest and most helpful method first?

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About the Author:
Jay Schroyer has worked in the client and customer service end of business for over five years in retail, advertising, and printing. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree in English writing and communication.