Common Mistakes Made by Users of Microsoft Word
Everybody knows Microsoft Word. It’s on almost every PC in the world and fair few Macs as well. However, a lot of users have picked up bad habits, things that detract from the usefulness of the document being created. This article looks at the most common basic errors among Microsoft users.
* When creating a document to be printed on a particular type of stationery, such as letter-headed paper, many Word users have the habit of using the Return key to create space at the start of the document. What they should be doing is changing the top margin. To change the margins in Word 2007, click on Margins then Custom Margins in the Page Layout tab on the ribbon. In previous versions of Word, choose Page Setup from the File menu.
* The habit of putting two spaces after a period goes back to the days of typewriters and monospace (fixed-width) typefaces like Courier where having two spaces after a period made the end of each sentence easier to detect when reading. Since modern computer-generated typefaces are proportionally spaced, the extra space is superfluous and should not be used.
* The habit of pressing the Return key twice at the end of each paragraph is not a good idea because it creates a sea of extra white space on the printed page. Only one return should used to end the paragraph. Extra space can then be added using the paragraph spacing commands. To find these options, in Word 2003 or earlier, choose Paragraph from the format menu. In Word 2007, click on the Page Layout tab.
* If a casual user of Word has never had any training, you will often see him or her using the space bar to align columns of text. This sometimes looks as though it’s working on screen but when the document is printed, the lack of alignment becomes very apparent. The only sure way of getting columns to align is to press the Tab key.
* Although you can get away with pressing the Tab key to create columns of text without actually setting any tabs, it’s not usually a good idea. This method uses Word’s default tabs and means that the user often inserts a varying number of tabs between columns. It’s much better to set up your own tabs by clicking on the Word ruler. That way, you will only ever need to press the Tab key once between columns.
* Another common mistake among Word users is to manually format text in long documents or perhaps to user the Format Painter. Manually formatting text is fine for single page or short documents but with long documents, it’s best to use Word’s style feature. That way, if you need to modify the appearance of the document, all you need to do is to modify the attributes of the styles.
* Word has a number of AutoCorrect options which can seem intrusive to new users and who complain about them without attempting to switch them off. To modify Word’s AutoCorrect and other settings, choose Options from the Tools menu (Word 2003/2002 etc.) or choose Word Options from the Office button in Word 2007.
