Word Definitions

When using Microsoft Word, there are several terms that you need to be aware of. This will help you communicate with the program more effectively, to get the results you're looking for. For example, Word's definition of a paragraph is a little different to ours.

Here are some of the words you'll need to know about:

Character
Every time you press a key on your keyboard, you're entering a character into Word. Letters, numbers, punctuation, special characters, the space bar, Enter - everything!

Paragraph
Every time you press Enter, you create a new paragraph. So if you write several lines of text, press Enter twice and type several more lines of text, you have created three paragraphs. Every time you use Enter to create spaces between text, you're creating what Word considers to be extra paragraphs.

Formatting
OK, so characters and paragraphs don't seem too difficult, but where they really differ is when you're applying formatting. Word basically applies it's formatting two different ways. Formatting is where you change how the text looks. Character formatting only applies to individual characters, and paragraph formatting only applies to individual paragraphs.

You've probably noticed this already, in fact. Here are some really common example of character formatting: bold, italic and underline. The way many people use these formats is: they turn the format on, type their text, and turn it off again when they're done using it. Or you type your text and go back to apply formats later. You select the text you want to apply the formats to, and then start applying them.

If you're using the second method, a quick hint for paragraph formatting is to click in the paragraph instead of selecting the whole thing. Then press your formatting button. Examples of paragraph formatting include all the types of alignment. The formatting will apply to the whole paragraph automatically.

One quick way to identify all the different types of character and paragraph formatting is to look in the Format menu. The Font dialog box contains ALL the character formatting, the Paragraph contains most of the Paragraph formatting. The rest of the Paragraph formatting can be found throughout the rest of the Format menu. For example, Borders and Shading and Bullets and Numbering.

Margins
Margins are the blank area around the edge of the page. So when you print a document, the size of the margin helps determine how close to the edge of the page the text is. Margins CANNOT contain text or graphics. They are always blank.

Header & Footer
The Header and Footer areas are NOT part of the margins. They are separate areas which you can type into. Whatever you type into one header will be repeated on every header throughout your document. The same goes for footers. There is a way you can set up the first page to be treated as unique. For example, you may want to put a cover page into your document and have no header showing there. One of the great things about Word 2007 is that if you double-click at the top of bottom of a document, the header or footer area will show up automatically, with the insertion point ready for you to type.