Microsoft Word Tips to Work Smarter and Faster

If working with documents is a necessary part of your job, you’re likely going to use Microsoft Word at some point. That’s why enhancing your skills and knowing the tips that help you work smarter is an essential skill.

Think about it, when you’re rushing to meet a deadline, you probably won’t have time to painstakingly go through your document to bolden the odd title in your document or fiddle with that alignment issue. By learning about these little tips and tricks to make your work smoother and faster, you can create, edit, and format your documents more efficiently – allowing you more time to focus on what matters. Below are some Microsoft Word hacks to make your work faster and easier.

Use Plugins to extend your Microsoft Word Functionality.

No doubt, Microsoft word is a great software for creating and editing documents with many features that you will find useful. However, plugins allow you to extend the base functionality of Microsoft word. For example, a contract review software plugin will provide you with another set of eyes to check for errors in your contracts. An editing and proofreading plugin can help detect errors that Microsoft Word’s in-built dictionary cannot pick.

Plugins will help make your workflow easier and faster, so don’t ignore them. If there’s a service that you use, check if it has a plugin and install it.

Be Familiar with Shortcuts

When you have a lot of work to do on Microsoft Word, it’s easy to overlook the basics. An excellent way to make Word work for you is to make sure you’re aware of the most common shortcuts and use them. These are some of the most common ones that help you work faster:

  • To select a word, double-click it.
  • To select a paragraph, triple-click it.
  • Want to edit or replace a word throughout the document? Use Find and Replace (Ctrl + H or Cmd + H) to change all the instances it appears in a long document.
  • Know your keyboard shortcuts! There are more shortcuts beyond copy, cut, and paste.

Make Formatting easier with Styles.

Microsoft Word Tips to Work Smarter and Faster

A document with consistent formatting will always look professional and feel more readable. However, reformatting headings manually, fixing font, and spacing issues can be quite frustrating and a waste of time. That’s why you have the Styles feature. It helps make your formatting consistent throughout your documents.

With styles, you can edit and apply predetermined formatting settings throughout your document, rather than manually editing each instance. Using the Styles feature means that you’re less likely to miss an occurrence and end up with inconsistent formatting.

Another added advantage of having a well-formatted document is that it becomes versatile. You can send the document to someone and be sure that it’ll look the same on their software, just like it does to you, even if they don’t use Microsoft Word. Other software, such as contract review software, sometimes rely on consistent formatting to understand the document and catch errors.

When you have a consistent formatting style, your work becomes easier and looks more professional.

Use Templates

Microsoft Word Tips to Work Smarter and Faster

Once you’ve understood how to use the Styles feature, take it a step further by creating templates. Templates help you make your work even faster because you can use them as a basis for letters, contracts, arguments, or any type of documents.

If you notice that some elements are constant when working on your documents, simply save it as a template. The next time you want to work on that document, simply load the template and start editing from there, rather than starting from a blank template.

Microsoft Word even has an online library of templates, so you don’t have to start from scratch. There are templates for litigations, contracts, reports, and so many more.

There you have it, four simple but powerful ways to make your work on Microsoft Word faster and easier.

Do you know of some tips that we didn’t mention? Let us know them! We’d love to try them out.

About 

Nick is a Software Engineer. He has interest in gadgets and technical stuffs. If you are facing any problem with your Windows, feel free to ask him.

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