What Teachers Should Know about Editing Portfolios with Word

On the Macintosh hold down the mouse button until the context sensitive menu appears instead of the Intel  ‘right click’

When working with Microsoft Word it is helpful to know the following:

When Word underlines a word in red, it is indicating that this word is misspelled.  Right click on the word and choose the correct spelling or choose to ignore the suggestion.

When Word underlines word in green, it is indicating that the grammar is incorrect or awkward. Right click on the words and choose the correct grammatical suggestion or choose to ignore the suggestion.

Clicking twice on a word selects it.

Clicking three times selects the line.

When you need to choose a lot of text, instead of dragging over the text, click where your choice begins and shift click where the text ends. 

After it is selected:

Move it by dragging it to a desired location

Right click it to choose a synonym

Right click to cut or copy it

When text is out of alignment, chances are that your students have inserted a  ‘new paragraph’ marker, a tab or extra spaces between words.  You can check this theory out by clicking on the  button.  This allows you to see every ‘space bar depression’ and every ‘enter key’.  Enter should only occur at the end of every paragraph.  You can remove extra characters by placing the cursor to the right of them and hitting the backspace key. Then, hide the ‘invisible characters’ by clicking the  button again.

The Standard toolbar – If this toolbar is not visible, choose View, Toolbars and Standard.

This entire toolbar could become a floating window by double-clicking on the control bar at the far left end of this toolbar. That gives the following window, which can be placed anywhere on the screen:

This toolbar can be restored to its original position by clicking in the gray bar at the top and dragging it back to the top of the screen. Push the top of the window up to the bottom of the menu bar.

Function of commonly used buttons
	Creates a new blank document based on the default template		Opens or finds a file
	Saves the active file with its current file name, location and file format		Prints the active file - for more print options go to the File menu and select Print
	Print preview - Shows how the document will look when you print it.		Spelling, grammar and writing style checker
	Cut - Removes the selection from the document and places it on the clipboard		Copy - Copies the selected item(s) to the clipboard
	Paste - Places the content of the clipboard at the insertion point		Format painter: Highlight a format you want, click on this button and highlight the text you want to be changed
	Undo - Reverses the last command, use pull-down menu to undo several steps		Redo - Reverses the action of the Undo button, use the pull-down menu to redo several steps
	Displays the Tables and Borders toolbar		Insert a table into the document, or make a table of selected text
	Insert an Excel spreadsheet into the Word document		Columns - Changes the number of columns in a document
	Displays or hides the Drawing toolbar		Zoom - Enlarge or reduce the display of the active document
Shows or hides the hidden characters.   Hidden characters are the Enter or Return key, tab keys and space bar, and page breaks.

The Formatting toolbar If this toolbar is not visible, choose View, Toolbars and Formatting

This entire toolbar could become a floating window by double-clicking on the control bar at the far left end of this toolbar. That gives the following window, which can be placed anywhere on the screen:

This toolbar can be restored to its original position by clicking in the gray bar at the top and dragging it back to the top of the screen. Push the top of the window up to the bottom of the menu bar.

Function of commonly used buttons
	Select the style to apply to paragraphs		Changes the font of the selected text
	Changes the size of selected text and numbers		Makes selected text and numbers bold
	Makes selected text and numbers italic		Underlines selected text and numbers
	Aligns to the left with a ragged right margin		Centers the selected text
	Aligns to the right with a ragged left margin		Aligns the selected text to both the left and right margins
	Makes a numbered list or reverts back to normal		Add, or remove, bullets in a selected paragraph
	Decreases the indent to the previous tab stop		Indents the selected paragraph to the next tab stop
	Adds or removes a border around selected text or objects		Marks text so that it is highlighted and stands out
	Formats the selected text with the color you click

The Drawing toolbar- If this toolbar is not visible at the bottom, choose View, Toolbars and Drawing

This entire toolbar could become a floating window by double-clicking on the control bar at the far left end of this toolbar. That gives the following window, which can be placed anywhere on the screen:

This toolbar can be restored to its original position by clicking in the gray bar at the top and dragging it back to the top of the screen. Push the top of the window up to the bottom of the menu bar.

Function of commonly used buttons
	A pulldown menu with several drawing options		Changes the pointer to a selection arrow
	Rotates the selected object to any degree		A pulldown menu with several libraries of shapes
	Draws a line where you click and drag. Hold the Shift key down to make the line straight		Inserts a line with an arrowhead where you click and drag
	Draws a rectangle where you click and drag. Hold down Shift to draw a square		Draws an oval where you click and drag. Hold down Shift to draw a circle
	Draws a text box where you click and drag		Create text effects with WordArt
	Add, modify, or remove fill color from a selected object		Add, modify, or remove line color
	Formats the selected text with the color you click		Changes the thickness of lines
	Selects dash style for dashed lines		Select arrow style; placement and shape of arrowhead
	A pulldown menu offers shadow choices		Add 3-d effects to rectangles or ovals

Check and make sure that under ‘Tools’, ‘Options’, under the ‘Save’ tab, the ‘Save AutoRecover info every 10 minutes’ is checked: