MS Word Home Menu Explained: Basic Formatting & Editing Tools//How to Use the MS Word Home Menu (Step-by-Step Tutorial)

MS Word Home Menu Explained: Basic Formatting & Editing Tools

Introduction:

Microsoft Word is one of the best Text editors in application software list. You can learn the use of Home Menu of Ms Word in detail by reading the article “MS Word Home Menu Explained: Basic Formatting & Editing Tools”. The article will acquaint about all command tabs and their command sets under Home Menu with simple explanation.  

 

Command Tabs or Menus:

Each menu under menu bar is called Command Tab. Home menu of menu bar is also a command tab which comprises many command sets like Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, Change Styles and Editing. Let us discuss all command sets and their uses with short cut keys.

 

Clipboard:

This tab contains cut, copy, paste, and format painter option. To perform any of these commands, the user must select the required text at first.

Ø Cut: It is used to remove or delete text from source; (Ctrl + X).

Ø Copy: It is used to copy selected text but doesn’t delete text of source; (Ctrl + C)

Ø Paste: It is used to paste copied text at the location of cursor; (Ctrl + V)

Ø  Format painter: It copies format (designs like colour, size, and type of font) only and then applies to other type text; (Ctrl + Shift + C/V)

 

Font:

Font tab is a very crucial command sets which have commands for font editing like type of font, size of font, colour of font, background of font etc. The font command set is one of the frequently used commands of Ms Word application software. To apply all the commands on text, user must select the text at beginning.

Ø Font Type: To change font as you require; like Times New Roman, Book Antique etc. (Ctrl + Shift + P)

Ø Grow Font: To increase the size of font; (Ctrl + shift + >) / (Ctrl + ])

Ø Shrink Font: To decrease the size of font; (Ctrl + Shift + <) / (Ctrl + [ )

Ø Font Type: To select predefined size of font like 20, 22, 24 etc.

Ø Font Case: To change case appearance of text like UPPER Case, lower case, Title Case etc.

Ø  Clear formatting: To clear all format applied selected text.

Ø Bold: To change the typed text into bold. (Ctrl + b)

Ø Italic: To change the typed text into italic design. (Ctrl + i)

Ø Underline: To place underline below text. (Ctrl + u)

Ø Strikethrough: To draw a horizontally line through the middle of text.

Ø Subscript: To make a letter smaller in size and appear below next to a normal text like in H₂O, 2 is in subscript form. (Ctrl +=)

Ø Superscript: To make a letter smaller and appear above next to a normal letter like in X². 2 is in superscript form. (Ctrl + Shift + +)

Ø Text Effect: It is a set of predefined designs like Outline, Shadow, Reflection and Glow.

·      Outline: It helps to changer colour, thickness and dashes of outline of selected text.

·      Shadow: It helps to apply shadow type you want to apply on text.

·      Reflection: It helps to apply reflection look on selected text.

·      Glow: It helps to apply glow feature to make text more attractive.

Ø Text Highlight Colour: To highlight selected text background with different colour, select this option.

Ø Font colour: To change font colour as you want.

 

Paragraph:

This command set brings us amazing features like bullet setting, numbering, multilevel list, text alignment, line spacing, placing boarder around text etc.

Ø Bullet setting: To place bullets (Symbols) at the beginning of each sentence.

Ø Number list: To place serial number to make a list of items.

Ø Multilevel list: To place multilevel number to make list

Ø Decrease Indent: To decrease the indent level of paragraph from left margin. It means moving the paragraph far from left toward right margin.

Ø Increase indent: To increase indent level of paragraph towards left margin. It means expanding paragraph toward left close to left margin.

Ø Sort: To sort alphabetical data or to sort in ascending or descending order.

Ø Show / Hide: To display hidden formatting or hide formatted text.

Ø Align Left: To align text to left side. (Ctrl + L)

Ø Align Right: To align text to right side. (Ctrl + R)

Ø Align Centre: To align text at centre of page. (Ctrl + E)

Ø Align Justify: To align text to each side of margin of paper adjusting gaps between words. (Ctrl + J)

Ø  Line and Paragraph Spacing: It allows you to insert space between rows of a paragraph as well as allow inserting space between two paragraphs horizontally.

Ø Shading: To colour the background of selected text of paragraph.

Ø Text or Paragraph Boarder: It allows to place border from different points of view like border at below, side, around etc. example: left border, right border, bottom border etc.

Ø Line and page breaks: It will help you to break pages in to many parts.

 

Styles:

These are the predefined text designs for heading rows of paragraph. These options are mostly used to insert Table of Contents in Ms Word.

Change Style:

You can change and save some new styles from this option to modify text.

 

Editing:

This is one of the review features of word editing software. Here you can use options like Find, Replace, and Select etc.

Ø Find: It is used to find a certain text or word or phrase in a paragraph throughout the whole document.( Ctrl + F)

Ø Replace: It allows you to find a particular word or phrase then replace it with a new word or phrase as you want. (Ctrl + H)

Ø Select: To select all press (Ctrl + A), To select a portion ( Shift + use arrow mark).

 

Conclusion:

In the article “MS Word Home Menu Explained: Basic Formatting & Editing Tools” we come to know how the home tab is helpful to us for text editing. If you want to improve your skill, please practice all shortcut keys mentioned in this article. Thank you.