iCheck Express™ Microsoft® Word 2007 Real World Applications

These articles allow you to further explore various computing topics and include a quiz for review.

Introduction Learn about how organizations use advanced features of word processing applications.

Directions Read the information below and apply what you learn to answer the questions. Check your work carefully, and click Check Answers.

How Businesses Use Advanced Features of Microsoft Word

You already know how businesses use many of Word’s more basic features. For example, employees use templates to create memos and other business documents. They may format documents using a variety of fonts and font styles, and use Building Blocks to insert repeated text into correspondence such as business letters. In addition, they create well-designed tables, business reports that include headers and footers, and appropriately formatted citations. These employees also improve their efficiency by using features such as AutoCorrect and the Spell and Grammar Check to correct common errors. While being able to use these features is vital in business, there are many advanced features of Word that also are important.

Businesses often expect their employees to create effective, eye-catching documents under tight deadlines—Word styles, graphics, and charts help employees meet this expectation. Employees often work on teams to review each other’s work, so they need to be familiar with Word’s collaboration features.

Some of Word’s advanced features and their common applications are explained in more detail below:

• Styles. When you create a document, by default the text is formatted in Normal style, which uses the Calibri font, a font size of 11 points, left alignment, and so forth. Word also includes other predefined styles, called Quick Styles, which allow you to change the color, font, and styles of headings and text with a simple click. You In addition, you can create custom styles in which you specify the formatting for fonts, paragraphs, lists, and so forth. Employees can create custom styles to match the style of their company’s business reports. For example, they could set table borders and shading, text alignment in paragraphs, and font style for headings to quickly create a report in the company’s style.
• Graphics and Charts. Many business reports include graphics and charts. Graphics make a report more eye-catching, and charts make data easier to understand and compare. Word includes features to rotate and crop pictures, as well as to increase or decrease their contrast and brightness. Text can be made to wrap around a graphic in a variety of ways. An employee might want to include in a business report a picture of the company’s president, cropping out unnecessary information and increasing the photo’s brightness. The employee also could create a link or embed a chart from another Word document or even from another application, without needing to recreate the chart from scratch.
• Advanced Table Formatting. Word includes features to merge cells to create headings across rows, to rotate cell contents by 90 degrees, to center text within cells both vertically and horizontally, to adjust row height and column width in order to reduce white space, and to align tables horizontally on a page. All of these features allow the user to create professional-looking tables that can be used in important business documents such as reports.
• Forms. Companies often use electronic forms to obtain data about their employees or customers. Frequently, these forms are Word documents that have been e-mailed to a target audience. A Word form can include areas in which users enter information into text fields, select check boxes, or choose an option from a list.
• Creating Longer Documents. Word allows the user to apply custom themes to documents. These custom themes can match the company style for fonts and color schemes. Because the same type of information is often used repeatedly in business documents, Word allows you to create your own Building Blocks that can be inserted into documents whenever needed. Word also contains features that simplify creating tables of contents, tables of figures, and indexes.
• Collaborating with Others. Important business documents are often created by a team. These documents can be saved on a server or e-mailed to other team members so that they can collaborate. Hard copies can be easily lost and edits on hard copy are often difficult to read. Instead of printing and editing files, team members can use the Review tab. Reviewers can add comments, make changes electronically without deleting the original text, check spelling, and compare versions of documents. The final reviewer can then choose to accept or reject these changes. Restrictions can also be placed on who can view or edit specific documents. Passwords can be set to control unauthorized access and maintain the security that is often required in business.

Assessment Questions

1			Name one way that businesses use custom styles.
2			What is the purpose of using graphics and charts?
3			What are three ways that tables can be formatted?
4			Identify one advantage of using Word’s Review options instead of marking changes on hard copy.