Master your word processor

Posted on 9 Jun 2009 at 16:56

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Does your word processing lack something? Julian Prokaza explains how, by making the most of a few advanced features, you can give your work the edge.

The humble word processor may have started life as a superior version of the typewriter, but it is now far more sophisticated. Most modern word processing programs are more like lightweight desktop-publishing (DTP) applications than text editors. Unfortunately, although these advanced programs put unparalleled amounts of creative potential at your fingertips, their complexity means that few people actually make use of the more advanced features.

Microsoft Word is a perfect example. Since its release in 1983, there have been 12 major versions, with the addition of so many features that Microsoft has had to overhaul the latest release to make it less imposing for new users. However, Word's complexity makes it nigh on impossible to present every feature in an easy-to-use way and, inevitably, many are buried in places most users will miss. In this feature, we'll highlight some of the most useful and most often ignored features. We've used Word 2007, but there's nothing here that can't be found in earlier versions or, indeed, other word processors.

Even if you only use your word processor to type documents and apply simple formatting, you can still exploit common features to put certain types of information on the page in a more professional fashion.

Headers & footers

If you need to repeat the same information at the top or bottom of a page throughout a document - such as a chapter title or creation date, for example - you could simply type it in the appropriate place. However, this would involve a lot of repetitive typing (or at least copying and pasting). Also, creating page numbers this way can cause problems, especially if you need to add or remove some text later. In situations such as these, it's better to use headers and footers.

Headers appear at the top of every page in a document, while footers appear at the bottom, and the space they occupy is blank by default. To add them in Word 2007, simply double-click at the top or bottom of the page to start editing your header or footer. You can type anything you like here, and apply any necessary formatting. Then just double-click back into the main document when you're done.

Word offers several options for inserting other things besides ordinary text into headers and footers, as you can see from the Header & Footer Tools tab that appears on the Ribbon whenever you're editing a header or footer. Perhaps the most useful are the Page Number and Date & Time options. Page numbers can be inserted into the header, footer or margin, and can be formatted in a variety of ways. Date & Time offers a variety of date formats, although Word will assume that you want the current date and time. If you want the date to be more dynamic, you'll need to use fields.

You can also opt to repeat headers and footers on every page, or just on odd or even pages. This is handy if you're printing a double-sided document and want header or footer information to be aligned differently on left and right pages.

Footnotes, Endnotes and citations

A footnote is a type of footer that appears at the bottom of just one page and serves to expand on a point made in the main body of the document. These are simple enough to create manually, but if you use Word's footnote tool then not only is footnote numbering handled automatically but the footnotes are also moved automatically to stay on the same page as their references in the main text. To create a footnote, highlight a word in the body text and click References, Footnotes and Insert Footnote.