Word Hidden Tools I suggest you take some time and go through all of the menu items on the top of the screen andexplore them. Charts, pasting pictures in text boxes, 3d boxes, word art, textures, patterns…ok you go find therest. Drawing is especially important…but experiment with all of them and find new things Ok…right off the bat I should tell you this: If you want to insert a picture in a Microsoft Word document, you should first draw a “text box” I know…you think the words text box mean it’s for text…but it works well for pictures. Once you’ve drawn a text box, paste the picture in the textbox. That way you can click on the text box and move the text box (with the picture inside) around the screen. This is helpful for designing brochures and much more.

There is one more tool I should mention which is
“the text box.”

To draw a text box, select “Insert” “Text Box” from
the top row menu and draw a textbox.
These two tools, when used together, turn MS Word
into a graphic design layout tool that is
more powerful and easier to use than almost anything
I have seen on the market today!
The reason it’s so powerful is this:
Whatever you can draw on your screen is what will appear on the paper, aligned perfectly as you see it on the screen.
This may not sound like anything big, but the crucial element is the alignment.
Some graphic design programs allow you to draw and design thousands of fancy shapes and fancy special effects…Which is all fine and well...
But what happens when you try to print them?
The picture appears at random places on the sheet of paper so that there is no real way to determine what your print will look like!
This is very frustrating to say the least!
You expect and need your prints to look the way you design, centered or aligned on the page down to the millimeter!
These fancy graphic design programs are good for designing graphics, but not for actually printing.
If this sounds like gibberish to you and you have no idea what I’m talking about, try using any graphic design program (like paint shop or fireworks).
Create an 8.5 x 11 inch canvas, type some text and shapes and starbursts like you were trying to design a
1 page, 8.5 x 11 mailing brochure.
Then print out a few pages and see if the alignment is anywhere even near satisfactory!
You’ll see that for the life of you you can’t figure how to make the print alignment work!
But with MS Word, your prints will all be aligned erfectly! Down to the millimeter as they are shown on the page!
I’ll go into more detail later, but this is one of the main reasons why I like this program so much.
So anyways, switch to MS Word right now and try experimenting with the “drawing tools” and “text boxes”.

More articles

1 | 2 | 3 | 4