MS Office

1. Choose Paragraph from the Format menu.

2. Set Left and Right under Indentation.

Another way is to use the Ruler. If the Ruler is not visible, select View from the menu, then select Ruler. On the left edge of the ruler, you will see three symbols that look like an hourglass sitting on a box. Moving these symbols anywhere on the ruler affects the current paragraph or selection as follows:

* Moving the top triangle indents the first line of the paragraph (or the first line in every paragraph you have selected).

* Moving the bottom triangle indents all lines in the current paragraph (or all lines in all paragraphs you have selected) except the first line.

* Moving the square moves the "hourglass" and sets a normal indent (all lines in the current paragraph or selection will be left aligned).

1. Choose Break from the Insert menu.

2. Select the Page Break radio button. You can also insert a page break by pressing Ctrl+Enter.

To delete a page break:

1. Switch to Normal view (Normal on the View menu).

Page breaks are identified on your document as dotted lines (page breaks you insert are identified as "Page Break".

2. Click at the left edge of the screen to select the page break.

3. Press the Delete key or click on the Cut button. You can also click below the page break, then press the Backspace key.

Note: You cannot delete the page breaks that Word calculates based on paper size, margins, and the general format of the document.

You can use sections to vary the layout of a document within a page or between pages. Just insert section breaks to divide the document into sections, and then format each section the way you want. To create sections and section breaks:

1. Place the cursor where you want the section to begin.

2. Choose Break from the Insert menu.

3. Under Section break types, click the option that describes where you want the new section to begin.

Once you have sections defined, then commands that ordinarily would affect the whole document can be applied only to the current section. For example, the Page Setup command (on the File menu) has an Apply to: list the allows you to select This Section, This point forward, or Whole document.

Indexes can get complicated. It is recommended that you read through all of the information in Help about indexes, then decide how to proceed. Here are the steps for creating a simple index: Mark an index entry:

1. Select the text to mark as an index entry.

2. Choose Index and Tables (or Reference, then Index and Tables) from the Insert menu, then click the Index tab, or press Alt+Shift+X.

Mark the all index entries, then generate the index:

1. Place the cursor at location for the index (usually a new last page), then open the Index dialog box.

2. Click on OK to create the index.

If you edit your document after creating the index, you will have to update it:

1. Click to the left of the index you want to update.

2. Press F9.

Note: When you update the index, any text or formatting you added to the finished index or table is lost.

To combine several relatively simple documents into a single document, repeat the following procedure until all of the individual documents have been combined. The original documents are unaffected by this procedure.

1. Start a new, blank document.

2. Choose File from the Insert menu.

3. Browse to the document you want to insert.

4. Select the document, then click Insert.

5. Usually, you will want to insert a page break after each file you insert: Choose Break from the Insert menu, select Page break, then click OK.

Some attributes of the documents you insert after the first one may be lost (e.g., margins, headers, and footers). Once you get all the documents combined, you can work on finishing up document formatting details, page numbering, etc. If your individual documents are more complex, Word's Master- and Sub-document feature is what you need. This feature is too complex for coverage here, but Word's Online Help will get you started.

A template determines the overall structure of a document and can include text, graphics, styles, macros, etc. When you start a new document by clicking on the New button on the Standard toolbar, it is based on the Normal template (see What is the Normal Template?). To use the other templates included with Word:

1. Choose New from the File menu.

2. In Word 2000, click on the tab in the New dialog box to select a category. In Word XP/2003, the templates appear in the task pane on the right side of the screen.

Note: Blank Document creates a document based on the Normal template.

3. Click once on a template or wizard icon to see a preview in the New dialog box.

4. Click OK to create a document based on the template you selected.

1. Choose Toolbars from the View menu, then select Mail Merge to display the Mail Merge toolbar.

2. Choose Customize from the Tools menu.

3. In the Customize window, select the Commands tab.

4. Select Mail Merge from the Categories list on the left.

5. Select Insert Mail Merge Field on the right.

6. Drag Insert Mail Merge Field to the Mail Merge toolbar and position it to the left of the Insert Word Field button.

7. Release the mouse button (the Insert Merge Field button will appear on the toolbar).

8. If you don't need the Mail Merge toolbar now, choose Toolbars from the View menu, then select Mail Merge to hide the Mail Merge toolbar.

Note: The method of "data exchange" has changed in Word 2003 from older versions of Office. One detail that is different is that the formatting of data from an Excel spreadsheet is lost when documents are merged. One fix is to use formatting "switches" in the merge fields in the main document, which is somewhat confusing. An easier fix is to change the data exchange method back to Dynamic Data Exchange or DDE (the method used in previous versions of Office). This method will apply the formatting in the Excel worksheet to the fields in the merged document.

To make this change:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu, then select the General tab.

2. Check the Confirm conversion at Open box.

3. Click OK.

4. When you select your Data Source document, Word will prompt you to Confirm Data Source. Choose MS Excel Worksheets via DDE (*.xls).

To insert an image file into your document:

1. Choose Picture from the Insert menu.

1. Choose Clip Art for the built-in clips, locate a clip in one of the clip categories, click on the clip, then click on the first icon in the pop-up menu (this is the Insert Clip button). The Clip Gallery may seem confusing, especially if you used Clip Art in previous versions of Office. Once you are in Clip Art, you can press F1 for help on using the Clip Gallery.

2. To insert a file you have saved on your computer, Choose File, locate the file, then click Insert.

To change the flow of text around a graphic object:

1. Select the picture.

2. Choose Picture from the Format menu.

3. The Layout tab has several options; the other tabs (Colors and Lines, Size, and Picture) allow you to make some changes to the graphic object.

Another method is to simply copy a picture you have open in a graphics application, then paste it into your Word document.