Word for Writers


Word for Writers, Part 14: Creating and Using Custom Templates 7

ONE MICROSOFT WORD SKILL you will never regret taking the time to learn is how to create and use templates. Templates are files that contain ready-to-use formatting and styles. You simply add the content. You may already be aware that Word comes with loads of stock templates for manuscripts, research papers, cover […]


Word for Writers, Part 12 – Copyediting with Find & Replace 4

I WANT to let you in on a secret: Word’s Find and Replace feature is an indispensable editing tool. Here are just a few ways you can use Find/Replace to improve your writing: Revise passive to active verb construction Find useless adverbs Discover unnecessary prepositional phrases Correct simple formatting problems, such […]


Word for Writers, Part 11 – Creating and Using Styles 7

WHEN A WRITER HAS NOT YET LEARNED how to use Styles, she applies formatting manually. For example, to format a title, she might select the title, apply bold formatting, make it a slightly larger font size, and center it. Applying formatting in this manner is called “direct formatting.” If you […]


Word for Writers, Part 10 – Formatting Text 8

OF ALL THE FEATURES offered by word processing programs, you may be most familiar with formatting text and paragraphs — commonly changing fonts, bolding, italicizing, and underlining. In its essence, formatting involves selecting text and then applying a format command using menus or buttons. In this article, I’ll show you […]


Word for Writers, Part 3: Changing Document Defaults 14

Do you usually change margins and font when starting a new Word document? For example, the standard for manuscripts formatting is 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced paragraph with a first line indent, and a 1” margin (top, bottom, left and right). However, Word’s defaults are 11 point Cambria, 1.15 line […]