Word Tables

6 Different ways to insert a table in Word 2016

As you know tables are very important element in word that can be used to represent and store more complex data in well-organized and very friendly manner. 

Table

Table is a collection of rows and columns. each place which a row and column are crossed makes a cell. therefore, a single table can have multiple rows, columns and cell.

Elements of a table

How to create table?

Microsoft office 2016 gives you six different methods to create a table.

Method I - Using the cell pallet

1. Go to the Insert tab
2. Point to the Tables group
3. Click the button Table. (a drop-down menu will be appeared)
4. Select the number of rows and columns and click the last cell of the selection
5. A table will be inserted.

Cell Pallet

Method II – using the “Insert Table…” command

1. Go to the Insert tab
2. Point to the Tables group
3. Click the button Table (a drop-down menu will be appeared)
4. Click on “Insert Table…” menu command. (the “Insert Table” dialog box will be appeared)
5. Type or select the number of columns and rows
6. Click “OK” or press “Enter” key

Insert Table Dialog Box

Method III – Draw Table

1. Go to the Insert tab
2. Point to the Tables group
3. Click the button Table (a drop-down menu will be appeared)
4. Click “Draw Table” command (The mouse pointer will change as a pencil)
5. First draw the outside border of the required table
6. Drag the mouse from top border to bottom border to add columns to your table
7. Drag the mouse from left border to right border to add rows to your table
8. After adding all the columns and rows to your table press “Esc” key (this will change your mouse pointer back to your normal pointer)

Method IV – Convert Text to Table

1. Enter the data which should include in your table. Use the tab key, comma or any special character to separate each field in your table
2. Select the entire data-set with headers
3. Go to the Insert tab
4. Point to the Tables group
5. Click the button Table (a drop-down menu will be appeared)
6. Click “Convert Text to Table” (“Convert Text to Table” dialog will appear)
7. Select the text separator you used when type above data-set.
8. Click “OK” or press “Enter” key

Text separated with commas

Text separated with Grater then Symbol

Text separated with Tabs

Method V – Excel Spreadsheet

1. Using this method, you can create table using excel spreadsheet. It allows you to use all the function and featured in excel through Word. helps to create more advanced tables
2. Go to the Insert tab
3. Point to the Tables group
4. Click the button Table (a drop-down menu will be appeared)
5. Click “Excel Spreadsheet” (an excel worksheet will open)
6. Enter data in the excel worksheet and do any changes like formatting, creating formulas…etc
7. Close the excel worksheet (a table will be created in your word document)
8. To edit the table just double click on the table

Method VI – Quick Tables

1. Microsoft word offers you more attractive pre-formatted tables with sample data.  Use them to create a table very quickly.
2. Go to the Insert tab
3. Point to the Tables group
4. Click the button Table (a drop-down menu will be appeared)
5. Point to “Quick Table” (a sub menu will appear with sample tables)
6. Select the table style you want

Text Formatting

Word provides variety of styles and colors to your text as well as visual effects like text shadow, subscripts, change case...etc.

You can do all these things in the font group under the home tab.

Font Group - Microsoft Word

Change Font Typeface and Size

To change the font typeface

• Click the arrow next to the font name and choose a font.
• Remember that you can preview how the new font will look by highlighting the text, and hovering over the new font typeface. 

To change the font size

• Click the arrow next to the font size and choose the appropriate size, or
• Click the increase or decrease font size buttons.

Change Text Color

To change the text color

• Select the text and click the Colors button included on the Font Group of the Ribbon
• Select the color by clicking the down arrow next to the font color button.

Highlight Text

Highlighting text allows you to use emphasize text as you would if you had a marker.

To highlight text

• Select the text
• Click the Highlight Button on the Font Group of the Ribbon, or
• Select the text and right click and select the highlight tool 
• To change the color of the highlighter click on down arrow next to the highlight button.

Copy Formatting

If you have already formatted text the way you want it and would like another portion of the document to have the same formatting, you can copy the formatting.

To copy the formatting, do the following

• Select the text with the formatting you want to copy.
• Copy the format of the text selected by clicking the Format Painter button on the Clipboard group of the Home Tab
• Apply the copied format by selecting the text and clicking on it.

Clear Formatting

To clear text formatting

• Select the text you wish to clear the formatting
• Click the Styles dialogue box on the Styles Group on the Home Tab
• Click Clear All 

Formatting Paragraphs

Formatting paragraphs allows you to change the look of the overall document. You can access many of the tools of paragraph formatting by clicking the Page Layout Tab of the Ribbon or the Paragraph Group on the Home Tab of the Ribbon.

Change Paragraph Alignment

The paragraph alignment allows you to set how you want text to appear.

To change the alignment

• Click the Home Tab
• Choose the appropriate button for alignment on the Paragraph group.
• Align Left: the text is aligned with your left margin
• Center: The text is centered within your margins
• Align Right: Aligns text with the right margin
• Justify: Aligns text to both the left and right margins.

Indent Paragraphs

Indenting paragraphs allows you set text within a paragraph at different margins. There are several options for indenting

• First Line: Controls the left boundary for the first line of a paragraph
• Hanging: Controls the left boundary of every line in a paragraph except the first one
• Left: Controls the left boundary for every line in a paragraph
• Right: Controls the right boundary for every line in a paragraph

To indent paragraphs, you can do the following

• Click the Indent buttons to control the indent.
• Click the Indent button repeated times to increase the size of the indent.
• Click the dialog box of the Paragraph Group
• Click the Indents and Spacing Tab
• Select your indents

Add Borders and Shading

You can add borders and shading to paragraphs and entire pages. To create a border around a paragraph or paragraphs,

• Select the area of text where you want the border or shading.
• Click the Borders Button on the Paragraph Group on the Home Tab
• Choose the Border and Shading
• Choose the appropriate options

Inserting Sample Paragraphs

There is a hidden trick in word which will be very useful when you learn Word. This is given by Word for educational purposes and to give some explanations about new features that comes with new version of Word. 

If you want to learn various tools in the toolbar (such as format text, cut or copy, alignment...etc), first you have to select the required text to be formatted, copied...etc. 

To do such things, from today you will do this as follows.

Syntax
=RAND("No of paragraphs to be inserted") and press Enter key.

Example
=RAND(5)

This will inserts 5 paragraphs. Then try any tool by selecting these paragraphs.

Note:
Try this function in anywhere in your word document but only at the beginning of the line.

Microsoft Office Templates

Templates is a special type of document (mostly it is pre-formatted) that help you to create professional documents, spreadsheets, presentations…etc. Microsoft office offers you thousands of templates to make your work more easy, quick and attractive. Few common templates come with your office package and they are ready to work offline. Go online for thousands of templates.

Download Office Templates

How to use templates in Word?

In office 2016, you can easily create documents using templates. Here are the simple steps to create document using a template.

1. Start Word 2016.
While loading your Word 2016, you will be asked to select a template. Following snapshot shows it clearly.

Word welcome screen

If you are online just type your keyword to browse templates online in the search box located in the top of this window.

Template Search Box

Search Results

2. Select a template. Following window will be appeared showing you the title, a brief description, download size of the selected template and a big create button.

Downloading a template

Click Create. Your template will be downloaded and a new document will be created with your template.

3. Edit the content of your document by placing relevant information on relevant places of your document template. You are allowed to customize the template. So, you can change colors, shapes, fonts and any other formatting that you want. (I will discuss them in my future posts).

4. Save the document (and it is ready to print…)

Cut, Copy and Paste

Cut, Copy and Paste in Word

What is Copy?

The term copy is used to make duplicate text entries within the same or separate documents. Once you copy a selected item, it goes to the memory called clipboard. It will be stay on the clipboard until you paste it.

What is Cut/Move?

The term cut is used to move selected text in to a different location in the current document or in to a separate document. In the same way moved item will be held in the clipboard until your paste it. However, once you click cut command, the selected text will be disappeared from the document.

Method I – Using the mouse

1. Select the text of couple of texts to be copy / move

2. Right click on the selection.

3. Click ‘Copy’ or ‘Cut’ according to your necessity

4. place the mouse cursor where you want to put your copied text

5. Right click

6. click ‘Paste’

Method II – Using the keyboard

1. Select the text of couple of texts to be copy / move

2. Press ‘Ctrl+C’ to copy or press ‘Ctrl+X’ to move

3. Place the cursor on the desired location to paste the item

4. Press ‘Ctrl+X’

Select text in a Word document

When you are going to create word document, it is necessary to have the ability of selecting content of the document. In Microsoft word processor, many tasks cannot be accomplished without selecting the specific text/object. Understanding various selecting methods will help you to prepare your document comfortably. 

therefore, I am going to show you how to select text in the document with use of mouse, keyboard or both.

Using the Mouse

• A single word - just double click on the word.
• Multiple words - place the mouse pointer in front of the text and then drag the mouse over the words to select them and release the mouse after the selecting is done.
• A paragraph - triple click on the paragraph. (Method I)
• A paragraph - double click in the left margin focusing the paragraph to be selected. (Method II)
• A single line - place the mouse pointer in the left margin focusing the line to be selected and then click.
• Whole document - triple click on the left margin.

Using keyboard

before you use the keyboard to select specific text in the document, you have to learn some cursor movements that can be done through your keyboard.  so, try these examples.

• press the left arrow key - to jump to the previous character.
• press right arrow key - to jump to the next character.
• press top (up) arrow key - to jump to the upper line.
• press bottom (down) arrow key - to jump to the bellow line.
• press CTRL + Left arrow key - to jump a word left.
• press CTRL+ Right arrow key - to jump a word right.
• press CTRL + Down arrow key - to jump to the beginning of below paragraph.
• press CTRL + Up arrow - to jump the beginning of the upper paragraph.
• Press HOME key to jump to the beginning of the line.
• Press END key to jump to the line end.

if you use any of the above cursor movement methods while press and holding down the SHIFT key, text will be selected from last cursor position up to new (current) cursor position.

Using Mouse and Keyboard

• Multiple words (random) - while holding down the CTRL key, double click each word or drag to select
• A sentence - CTRL + Click on the sentence.
• Whole document - at the left margin, CTRL + CLICK.

Creating a Word Document

A document is a file created using Microsoft Word. A document is made with pages. Any single document may consist many number of pages.

In word, you are able to insert, many number of pages with different sizes, however word gives you a blank page to make your document. By default, size of the first page of word is ‘Letter’. (Changing page sizes is explained in the future.)

Steps to create a word document.

1. Open Microsoft Word.

2. Click ‘blank document’ template.

3. In the page type the document /enter data to be saved.

4. Go to the ‘File’ tab.
5. Click ‘Save’ / ‘Save As’.

6. Browse and select the location to keep your file.
7. Type a suitable name for your file in the file name box.
Click ‘Save’

The Word 2016 Interface

At the startup click blank document to create your own document with your own formatting. Or if you want to create a document using a template, just click on it.

Welcome Screen

Elements of the Word 2016 Interface

There are few different parts in the interface which you should know before start working with Word. following screenshot shows the basic elements in the window.

The Word 2016 Interface (with Blank Document template)

1. Control buttons - The three different buttons located on the top right corner of the window. (From right to left Close, Maximize/Restore Down, and Minimize). Use these buttons to control window.

2. User Name - Displays details of the current user. Still if you are not a Microsoft Account holder, just sign-up and use that sign-in details to sing-in to word.

3. Document Title - Shows the title of the window. usually it become the file name. and until you save your file it shows the title as Document1-Word, Document2-Word...  and so on.

4. Quick Access Toolbar - A small horizontal bar with few different buttons. This is designed to hold your frequently accessing tools. (Save, Quick Print, New..etc). And you are able to add/remove any tool in this bar.

5. The Ribbon - The most important element in the entire interface. The horizontal bar with all the tools which we will use to develop our document. Tools in the ribbon is arranged as tabs. (Home, Insert, Design, Layout...etc) each tab has many tools and all these are arranged in different groups. (In the home tab; Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, and Editing are considers as groups. 

6. Horizontal Ruler - By default it is measured in inches. And the ruler helps us to create document with correct measurements. Further more this ruler is used to arrange text in the document, create illustraions...etc

7. Vertical Ruler - Same as the horizontal ruler, this is used to create documents with correct measurements.

8. Page - This is the location where we use to arrange text, images and shapes on the document. Different Page sizes, two main Orientations and many more options are available to select according to your preference. 

9. Status bar - Shows the summery of the file and and some notifications like input language, Progress, View options..

Starting Word 2016

once you have purchased and installed Microsoft Office 2016, then you are ready to work with office. Microsoft word 2016 comes with Microsoft office 2016 as the word processing application and by default it is installed on the drive C: (In Windows). and windows provides few different ways to open Word 2016.

following methods will be worked fine on Windows 10.

Method 1:

1. Click on Start Menu.
2. Type Word 2016.
3. Hit the Enter key

Method 2:

1. Press Window key + R  (The Run dialog box will be appeared).
2. Type "WINWORD"
3. Click OK or press Enter Key

Method 3:
browse system partition of the hard disc to find out WINWORD.EXE. (This is usually stay in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office)

Why Microsoft Word?

Microsoft Word or MS Word is a one of the powerful tools (applications) for creating more nice-looking documents easily. 

Before few decades ago, we used papers with handwritten tools (Pen, Pencil, Eraser...etc) to crate, collect, save information on a paper. Then the typewriter was invented to make this sort of tasks easier. However today, we use word processing applications for do such things. Microsoft Word is one of the world's most popular application software to create attractive documents with text, pictures, shapes, and many other illustrations.

Starting Microsoft Word