Microsoft Word 2016 Tutorial with 7 quick VIDEOS Free Online Microsoft Word Tutorial
Line Spacing in Word – Paragraph Spacing in Word
Alignment in Word – Paragraph Alignment – Horizontal Alignment
Vertical Alignment Word
Bullet Points in Word, Numbered List, Multilevel List Word
Indentation in Word 2016
Paragraph Shading and Borders in Word
Sorting Text in Word 2016
Show Paragraph Marks in Word / Hide Paragraph Marks in Word
Paragraph Dialogue Box in Word 2016
Paragraph Formatting – Keyboard Shortcut Word
Test your MS Word skills with the corresponding FREE Online Multiple Choice Formatting Paragraphs in Word 2016 Test
Formatting Paragraphs in Word
Another formatting tutorial? Surely we covered this in Formatting Text in MS Word? There’s more to this formatting thing than fancy fonts I’m afraid. Where previously we covered altering the appearance of the typeface, in this section, we’re going to cover the formatting of bodies of text, covering topics such as placement, spacing, and structure.
The Word Ribbon – the features covered in this section are located on the Paragraph section of the Home tab on the ribbon.
Line Spacing in Word – Paragraph Spacing in Word
Quick video introduction to Line Spacing and Paragraph spacing in Word
Want to know how to change line spacing in Word 2016? You’ve customized the text of your documents before, now prepare to customize the empty spaces. Aesthetic reasons aside, certain types of documents may require specific spacing configurations, for example legal contracts. It is also especially common for educational institutions to specify the line spacing on assignments, to better facilitate readability and marking.
When hovering over options in the ‘Line and Paragraph Spacing’ menu, Word’s “live preview” functionality will adjust the spacing on your document to the setting in question but will revert to its original spacing if no option is selected.
Alignment in Word – Paragraph Alignment – Horizontal Alignment
Left alignment is what most Western cultures would consider the default. When set to left aligned, each new line of text will start against the left margin of the page and continue towards the right. As such, the first word of each line will line up vertically. Because each line of text is usually a different length, this will result in “jagged” spacing near the right margin.
Center alignment aims to make the spaces between the left and right page margins, and the left and right edges of the text equal. As a result, your line of text will be at the relative center of the page. If you were to view consecutive lines of center aligned text, you would notice that the words do not line up on either the left or right ends of the page. Center alignment is not often used for large paragraphs of text but can add subtle visual clout to things like headings.
Right alignment mirrors the placement of left alignment. Word will line up the last character of the last word of each line against the right page margin.
Finally, justified alignment will attempt to line up both ends of the paragraph text, removing the jagged appearance altogether. It does this by subtly adjusting the space between each word until all lines within a paragraph are equal length. Note that this will not affect the last line of each paragraph, which remains left aligned.
Quick video introduction to Vertical Alignment in Word
So far, all the alignment we’ve covered has been in relation to horizontal alignment, but how do we set the vertical alignment?
Under the dialogue’s Layout tab, you’ll find the Page section, where you can set the vertical alignment to Top, Center, Justified, or Bottom.
Bullet Points in Word, Numbered List, Multilevel List Word
Quick video introduction to Bullet Points and Lists in Word
Sometimes we need to put things in point form or numbered lists.
Bulleted lists display uniform symbols at the start of each list item / paragraph. This form of list is suited to situations where the order of items is not particularly important and where no item needs to be referenced from another part of the document.
Numbered lists display numbers or letters incrementally for each list item. Each item is thus uniquely identified within the list, meaning lists of this nature are well suited to situations where the order of items is important (for example instructions) or where items my need to be referred to (for example a contract).
Quick video introduction to Indentation in Word
Pressing the ‘Increase Indent’ button paragraph will move the selected paragraph further from the left margin, whereas the ‘Decrease Indent’ button will move the paragraph closer.
Indenting helps to separate the paragraph from the text around it. Indenting is also frequently combined with lists, particularly multilevel lists, as indenting an item within a list will automatically make that item a sub-list of the item before it.
While these buttons only affect indentation relative to the left margin, the Paragraph dialogue allows you to specify indents from the right margin if needed.
Paragraph Shading and Borders in Word
Quick video introduction to Borders and Shading in Word
Paragraph shading sets the background color for the selected paragraph of text. Unlike the text highlight function from the Font section, which displays a color behind selected characters, shading colors a rectangular box which fully encompasses the selected paragraph(s).
Related to shading, the ‘Borders’ button allows you to display lines along the edges of the rectangular box occupied by the selected paragraph(s).
Sorting Text in Word 2016
Quick video introduction to Sorting Text in Word
The ‘Sort’ button will sort paragraphs alphabetically or numerically, in either ascending or descending order. If no paragraphs are highlighted, it will attempt to sort the entire document.
While this may seem like a somewhat esoteric function for paragraphs, remember that Word conceptualizes paragraphs as text separated by a “new paragraph” signal, typically as a result of the user pressing ENTER on the keyboard. As such, this same button is used to sort lists or tables.
Show Paragraph Marks in Word / Hide Paragraph Marks in Word
Paragraph Dialogue Box in Word 2016
Paragraph Formatting – Keyboard Shortcut Word
Woohoo! Now that you have done the tutorial:
TEST your MS Word skills with the corresponding FREE Online Multiple Choice Formatting Paragraphs in Word 2016 TEST
* TRY THE NEXT TUTORIAL: Styles in Word Tutorial 2016
* TRY THE NEXT TEST: Styles in Word 2016
* More from Tests Tests Tests.com