Project 1: Word Basics
Word Help

Step-by-Step: Office Assistant

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What you will learn:

to turn on Office Assistant to use Office Assistant to get help to learn how styles work to apply paragraph & character styles

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Start with:  (Word is open with a blank document.)

Turn on Office Assistant

If you do not see the Office Assistant, it may be just hiding.

1. From the menu choose  Help .
    
2. Click on Show the Office Assitant , the second item in the menu. The animated Office Assistant appears on your screen.

   If the second item is  Hide the Office Assistant , then the Assistant is already showing on your screen somewhere.

   If the second item is grayed out, open the Help dialog by clicking on the first item in the menu, close the dialog, and then look at the menu again.

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Use Office Assistant to learn about Styles

1. Open the Office Assistant dialog by clicking on the Assistant cartoon.
   Or press the F1 key.
    
   The Office Assistant dialog appears with questions that you might want to ask, related to what you were just doing. Different versions have somewhat different suggestions here.
    
2. In the text box type  style a paragraph  and then click the Search button. A list of topics about styles appears.
   In Word 2003, the list is in the task pane, Search Results.
    
3. Click the topic:
   About styles.
   , About formatting text by using styles.
   
   A Help window appears with an explanation of what styles are.
    
4. Read the topic and any related topics. Look especially for information about how Word may be automatically changing your styles! Then close Help.
   The Office Assistant's list is gone (except in Word 2003). How sad! Do not lose hope!
    
5. Double-click on the Office Assistant again.
   In versions before Word 2002, the list about styles is gone, but our search words are still there.
   1. Click on Search to get the list back.
   2. Click on Apply a different style. Another Help window appears.
   3. Read the topic, especially the Tip at the bottom.

   Word 2002: The Search list re-appears. An improved version!

   1. In the Search box type auto update style and then click the Search button.
   2. Click on the topic Automatically update a paragraph style.
   3. Read the topic.

   Word 2003: The Search Results task pane is still open.

   1. Click on Automatically update a paragraph style
   2. Read the topic.
       
6. Close the Help window.

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Apply Styles

Start with:   Show Marks is on.

You will create a document like the one at the right by using Styles.

1. In your blank document type the words Word Project 1  and then press ENTER to get a new line.
    
2. Type your name and press the ENTER key to get a new line.
    
3. Repeat the last step four more times for a total of 5 lines that contain your name.
    
4. Click in line 1 somewhere, without selecting any letters.
    
5. Click on the arrow at the end of  the Styles control.
    
6. Select the style Heading 1. The style is applied to the whole paragraph, which in this case is just one line.

   You don't have to select the whole paragraph. The cursor just needs to be somewhere inside the paragraph.

   The little square to the left of a line means that this paragraph is styled with one of the Heading styles. The Heading styles are used to create an outline of your document. Not too helpful for this short document, but really nice for longer ones.

   [If you do not see the squares and paragraph marks, you need to Show Marks by clicking the Show Marks button. If you do not see this button, click on the double arrow at the right edge of the Formatting toolbar to see the hidden buttons.]
    

7. Click in line 2
    
8. Apply the style Heading 1 to it, as in the previous step.
    
9. Click in line 3.
    
10. Choose from the Styles drop list the style Heading 2.
     
11. Continue, applying Heading 3 to line 4 and Normal style to line 5. No change occurs in line 5 with the Normal style since that's what was already applied to the text.
     
12. Move your pointer to the end of line 6.
     
13. Select line 6 by dragging back across the line to the left.
     
14. From the toolbar click on the  Bold and Italics buttons and then change the size to 20 using  the Size drop list. Then click in a blank part of the document to deselect the text.
     
15. On line 6, select just your first name by double-clicking it. (This works for single words.)
     
16.   While your first name is selected, select from the Styles list the style a Default Paragraph Font, which is a special character style rather than a paragraph style.
    
    A character style applies to just the selected text while a paragraph style applies to the entire paragraph. This special style will return the selected text to the original paragraph style. This is one way to dump a whole set of changes.
     
    While your first name is selected, select from the Styles list the style Clear formatting. This "style" returns the selected text to its underlying paragraph style, clearing any changes you made separately.
     
    If you select the whole paragraph and apply Clear formatting, you will clear the paragraph style as well as any separate formatting. This is a fast way to get all the way back to the default font formatting.
     
17. Make the same changes on the second line, which has the style Heading 1- select the line, bold, italics, size 20, select first name only, apply Default Paragraph Font style ( Clear formatting.).
     
    The result looks different from the previous line! You have returned the paragraph to its original paragraph style. For line 2 that is Heading 1 instead of Normal. You have to pay close attention to the details or your head will start spinning!
     
18. Save this document by clicking the Save button. Since this is a new document, you will see the Save As dialog box. Name the document  mystyles.doc  and save it in the word project1  folder on your Class disk.
     
19. Print by clicking the Print button on the toolbar.
     
20. After your document prints successfully, use the Close button for the document to close the document, but not Word itself, if you are going to continue working at this time.

    Do not close a document until you have checked that the printing finished and was correct.