The Menu bar is the area at the top of the screen where you will find File, Edit, View, and other important menu commands. The Toolbar is directly below the Menu bar and displays common tasks like saving, printing, and opening a document. The Ribbon is at the top of your workspace, below the Toolbar and organizes features of Microsoft Word into categories, like the Home tab and Layout tab.

These are the buttons that look like a small version of a document, with small black lines according to their buttons alignment function. You can find the alignment buttons toward the center of the Ribbon, after the Underline button and before the Bullets button.

Find the Line and Paragraph spacing button on the Ribbon after the Alignment buttons. This button looks like a row of lines with vertical arrows to the left of the lines pointing upward and downward. If you want to edit the spacing of an existing line or paragraph, highlight the context and click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button to edit it. You can also edit line and paragraph spacing by clicking on the Format tab on the Menu bar at the top of your screen, selecting “Paragraph” from the list, and selecting your desired spacing. Many professional documents like college essays and cover letters should be double-spaced.

This will change the virtual size of the document you’re writing.

To set the header of your document, double-click on the topmost part of the page and the header field will appear. Adjust the document footers. Footers are just like document headers. All text in the footer will appear at the bottom of each page of your document. To set the footer of your paper, double-click on the bottommost part of the page and the footer field will appear. You can also format your headers and footers by selecting the “View” tab from the Menu bar at the top of your screen and clicking “Header and Footer” on the list. This action will open the headers and footers on your page and allow you to create them.

If you want to use your own margin measurements, click “Custom Margins” at the very bottom of the drop-down list to set your own.

If you want to create one, two, or three columns, you can do so from the preset options. If you’d like to create more, you’ll need to choose “More Columns. " Note that this column option is different from the columns you get when you insert items like tables on your document.

These buttons can be found side by side on the Ribbon, after the alignment buttons. The Numbering button displays three small lines with numbers to the left of the lines and the Bullets button displays three small lines with bullet points to the left of the lines.

Before you apply a style, you can see all of the available styles and preview how they will appear when applied. On the Home tab or under the Format tab on the Menu bar, under Styles, select a style and click your desired style. You can also click the Modify button on the Styles tab to create your own style. By default, Word applies a paragraph style (for example, Heading 1) to the entire paragraph. To apply a paragraph style to part of a paragraph, select only the specific part that you wish to modify.

Click on to the left of the first word you wish to select and hold the cursor while dragging the cursor over all the words you wish to select.

Always consider the formatting guidelines of the document you are writing when choosing the font style and size. The standard font for most college and professional papers is Time New Roman size 12 font.

Just click the buttons on the Ribbon once you have selected the font you want to modify.

Navigate to the far right of the Ribbon to find the Highlight button, a blue ABC with a white bar underlining it, and the font color button, a letter A with a black bar underneath.

Right-click on the image and hover over Wrap Text. Select the alignment that bests suits your document. You will see a preview as you hover over each option. Select the image and then hold the Ctrl key. While holding the key, use the arrow keys to move the picture around the document.

Click “OK” to have Word insert the graph onto your Word document and pop up the “Chart in Microsoft Word – Microsoft Excel” window.