Microsoft Office Resources

Word is Microsoft’s word processing program. It is commonly used for papers, reports, and résumés among other types of documents. Essentially anything you would print out to be read by faculty, colleagues or fellow students can be created with Microsoft Word.

As with Outlook, the Word desktop app has the most functionality and is worth installing if writing is a big part of your scholarship or work.

Resources from Microsoft Support

The following articles from Microsoft's support site should answer most of your basic questions about using the Word desktop app:

• Create a document: Goes over the steps for creating a new Word document, either from scratch or from a template.
• Add and format text: Covers basics of how to add and format text while creating a Word document.
• Create a bulleted or numbered list: Demonstrates how to create a numbered or bulleted list or convert existing text into a list.
• Change the line spacing in Word: Shows how to change the spacing in your documents.
• Change margins: Goes over the basics of setting up the margins for your documents.
• Insert a table: Details how to add a table to your document, allowing you to organize your text into rows and columns.
• Insert a picture: Goes through the steps for adding pictures to your document, including some basic formatting tips.
• Save a document: Demonstrates how to save a document in Word.
• Print your document: Details how to print a document, including how to preview your document, select a printer, and select which pages to print.

If you need additional help using Word, there are many other support articles available from Microsoft accessible from their main Word for Windows training page.

Non-Microsoft resources

If you want to look at a more thorough training module experience with exercises to work through there are a couple of other options available.

Goodwill Community Foundation Word Tutorial: this tutorial is freely available to anyone with an internet account and offers a pretty thorough introduction to Microsoft Word with a good deal of video content and detailed demonstrations with screenshots.

Learning Word Desktop (Microsoft 365) Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com:  This LinkedIn Learning video tutorial can be accessed by Massachusetts residents with a free BLP eCard account.

As with all Office products, the web version of Word is laid out very similarly to the desktop app and functions in much the same way. There are some differences, however, and if you plan on primarily interacting with Word through the web interface, it is worth checking out the documentation specific to it Microsoft has provided:

• Get to know Word for the web
• Change document layout
• Insert tables and pictures