Five Ways to Open Microsoft Word

Chances are good that your small business handles a lot of documents -- most do. That's why being able to access them as efficiently as possible is important. You probably know at least one or two ways to open Microsoft Word on your PC, but there are a few you may not know.

Step 1

Click the Start button. Type "word" without quotation marks into the search box. Click "Microsoft Word 2010" in the list that appears.

Step 2

Click the Start button. Hover the mouse pointer over "All Programs." Scroll down to the Microsoft Office folder and click it. Select "Microsoft Word 2010."

Related Reading: How to Open Attachments in Microsoft Word

Step 3

Press the Windows key and "R" on the keyboard at the same time to bring up the Run dialogue. Type "WinWord.exe" without quotation marks into the box.

Step 4

Right-click on an empty area of the Windows 7 desktop. Hover the mouse pointer over "New" in the menu that appears. Click "Shortcut." Type or copy and paste "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" into the box. Click "Next." Type "Word" into the box and click "Finish." Double-click the Word shortcut that appears on the desktop to launch Word.

Step 5

Open an MS Word file on your computer by double-clicking it. If you are asked to choose an application to open the file with, select "Microsoft Word." You may close the file you have opened if you do not want to use it now and open another one instead.

Working with Tables in MS Word

A table is a structure of vertical columns and horizontal rows with a cell at every intersection. Each cell can contain text or graphics, and you can format the table in any way you want. Usually top row in the table is kept as a table header and can be used to put some informative instruction.

Create a Table:

Following are the simple steps to create a table in a word document.
Step (1): Click the Insert tab, and click Table button. This will display a simple grid shown below. When you move your mouse over the grid cells, it makes a table in the table which appears in the document. You can make your table having desired number of rows and columns.
Step (2): Click the square representing the lower-right corner of your table, which will create a actual table in your document and word goes in table design mode giving lots of options to work with table as shown below.
Step (3): This is the optional step if you want to have fancy table. Click Table Styles button to display a gallery of table styles. When you move your mouse over any of the styles, it shows real time preview of your actual table.
Step (4): To select any of the styles, just click over the built-in table style and you will see that selected style has been applied on your table.

Delete a Table:

Following are the simple steps to delete an existing table from a word document.
Step (1): Click anywhere in the table you want to delete.
Step (2): Click the Layout tab, and click Delete Table option under the Delete Table Button to delete complete table from the document along with its content.
 

As discussed in previous chapter, a table is a structure of vertical columns and horizontal rows with a cell at every intersection. A Word table can contain as many as 63 columns but the number of rows is unlimited. This chapter will teach you how to add and delete rows and columns in a table.

Add a Row:

Following are the simple steps to add rows in a table of a word document.
Step (1): Click a row where you want to add an additional row and then click Layout tab to have following screen.
Step (2): Now use Row & Column group of buttons to add any row below or above to the selected row. If you click Insert Below button, it will add a row just below the selected row as follows.
If you click Insert Above button, it will add a row just above the selected row.

Delete a Row:

Following are the simple steps to delete rows from a table of a word document.
Step (1): Click a row which you want to delete from the table and then click Layout tab to have following screen.
Step (2): Click the Layout tab, and click Delete Rows option under the Delete Table Button to delete the selected row.

Add a Column:

Following are the simple steps to add columns in a table of a word document.
Step (1): Click a column where you want to add an additional column and then click Layout tab to have following screen.
Step (2): Now use Row & Column group of buttons to add any column left or right to the selected column. If you click Insert Left button, it will add a column just left to the selected column as follows.
If you click Insert Right button, it will add a column just right to the selected column.

Delete a Column:

Following are the simple steps to delete columns from a table of a word document.
Step (1): Click a column which you want to delete from the table and then click Layout tab to have following screen.
Step (2): Click the Layout tab, and click Delete Column option under the Delete Table Button to delete the selected column.

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 Microsoft Word allows to move a table from one location to another location along with its content. This chapter will give you simple steps to move a table within the same document, though you can move a table from one document to another document using cut and paste operation.

Move a Table:

Following are the simple steps to move a table with-in the same word document.
Step (1): Bring your mouse pointer over the table which you want to move from location to another location. As soon as you bring your mouse pointer inside the table, a small Cross Icon will appear at the top-left corner of the table as shown below.
Step (2): Click over the small Cross Icon which will select the whole table. Once table is selected, use Cut button or simply press Ctrl + X keys to cut the table from its original location.
Step (3): Bring your insertion point at the location where you want to move the table and use Paste button or simply press Ctrl + V keys to paste the table at the new location.
 

Microsoft Word allows to resize a table to make it smaller and bigger as per your requirement. This chapter will give you simple steps to resize a table.

Resize a Table:

Following are the simple steps to resize a table available in a word document.
Step (1): Bring your mouse pointer over the table which you want to resize. As soon as you bring your mouse pointer inside the table, a small Cross Icon will appear at the top-left corner and a small Resize Icon will appear at the bottom-right corner of the table as shown below.
Step (2): Bring mouse cursor over the Resize Icon till it changes to diagonal double sided arrow and this is the time when you need to press left mouse button and keep holding the button while resizing the table. Drag the table up to make it shorter or down to make it larger. You can drag the table diagonally to simultaneously change both the width and height of the table.
 Microsoft Word allows merging two or more cells to create one large cell. You would frequently need to merge columns of the top row to create title of the table. You can merge cells either row-wise or column-wise, rather you cannot merge cells diagonally. This chapter will teach you how to merge multiple rows or columns.

Merging Cells:

Following are the simple steps to merge table cells in a word document.
Step (1): Bring your mouse pointer position inside the first cell you want to merge. Now press Shift key and click the cells around the cell which you want to merge into the first cell. This will highlight the cells which you click and they will be ready to be merged.
Step (2): Now click the Layout tab and then click Merge Cells Button which will merge all the selected cells.
After merging the cells, all the content of the cells will be scrambled which you can fix later as you like. For example, you can convert the merged cells text into title or some other description. For example, let us have center aligned and bigger font text as follows on top of the table.
 

 Sometime there will be a situation when you would like to split an existing table into two or more tables. Microsoft Word allows splitting a table into multiple tables but a single operation will always divide a table into two tables. This chapter will teach you how to split a table into two smaller tables.

Split a Table:

Following are the simple steps to split a table into two tables in a word document.
Step (1): Bring your mouse pointer position anywhere in the row that should appear as the first row of the new table.
Step (2): Now click the Layout tab and then click Split Table Button which will split the table into two tables and selected row will become the first row of the lower table.
After splitting the table into two tables, you can further divide it into two parts and you can continue dividing word tables as long as a table has more than one number of rows.
 

Previous chapter taught us how to divide a table into multiple tables. Sometime you will need to split a table cell into two or more sub-cells. Microsoft Word allows splitting a cell into multiple cells. This chapter will teach you how to split a cell into multiple smaller sub-cells.

Split a Cell:

Following are the simple steps to split a cell into two sub-cells of a table available in word document.
Step (1): Bring your mouse pointer position inside a cell that you want to divide into multiple cells.
Step (2): Now click the Layout tab and then click Split Cells Button which will display a dialog box asking for number of rows and columns to be created from the selected cell.
Step (3): Select the desired number of rows and columns which you would like to have in resultant cell and finally click OK button to apply the result.
You can divide a cell into multiple cells either row-wise or column-wise or both.
 Microsoft Word allows you to use mathematical formula in table cells which can be used to add numbers, to find average of numbers, or find the largest or smallest number in table cells you specify. There is a long list of formulas from which, a formula can be used based on the requirement. This chapter will teach you how to use formula in word tables.

Add a Formula:

Following are the simple steps to add formula in a table cell available in word document.
Step (1): Consider the following table where we will have total of the rows. Click in a cell that should contain the sum of a rows.
Step (2): Now click the Layout tab and then click Formula button which will display a Formula Dialog Box which will suggest a default formula, which is =SUM(LEFT) in our case. You can select a number format using Number Format List Box to display the result or you can change the formula using Formula List Box.
Step (3): Now click OK to apply the formula and you will see that left cells have been added and its sum has been put in the total cell where we wanted to have it. You can repeat the procedure to have sum of other two rows as well.

Cell Formulas:

The Formula dialog box provides following important functions to be used as formula in a cell.

Formula	Description
AVERAGE( )	The average of a list of cells.
COUNT( )	The number of items in a list of cells
MAX( )	The largest value in a list of cells
MIN( )	The smallest value in a list of cells
PRODUCT( )	The multiplication of a list of cells
SUM( )	The sum of a list of cells

If you are bit familiar with spreadsheet program, you can construct your word cell formula. Word formulas use a reference system to refer to individual table cells. Each column is identified by a letter, starting with A for the first column, B for the second column, and so on. After the letter comes the row number. Thus, the first cell in the first row is A1, the third cell in the fourth row is C4, and so on.
Following are usful points to help you in constructing word cell formula.

SN	Cell References and Description
1	A single cell reference, such as B3 or F7
2	A range of cells, such as A4:A9 or C5:C13
3	A series of individual cells, such as A3,B4,C5
4	ABOVE, referring to all cells in the column above the current cell.
5	BELOW, referring to all cells in the column below the current cell.
6	LEFT, referring to all cells in the row to the left of the current cell
7	RIGHT, referring to all cells in the row to the right of the current cell

You can also construct simple math expressions, such as B3+B5*10 by using simple mathematical operators +, -, /, *, %.

Microsoft Word allows you to place a border on any or all of the four sides of a table very similar to text, paragraphs, and pages. You can also add many type of shading to table rows and columns. This chapter will teach you how to add any of the borders ( left, right, top or bottom) around a table and how to add different shadows to various rows and columns of the table.

Add Borders To Table:

Following are the simple steps to add borders in a table cell available in word document.
Step (1): Select the table to which you want to add border. To select a table, click over the table anywhere which will make Cross Icon visible at the top-left corner of the table. Just click this cross icon to select the table.
Step (2): Click the Border Button to display a list of options to put a border around the selected table. You can select any of the option available by simply clicking over it.
Step (3): Try to add and remove different borders like left, right top or bottom by selecting different options from the border options.
Step (4): You can apply border to any of the selected row or column. You can try it yourself.
Step (5): To delete the existing border, simply select No Border option from the border options.

Using Border Options:

You can add borders of your choice to word table by following the simple steps given below.
Step (1): Click the Border Button to display a list of options to put a border. Select Border and Shading option available at the bottom of list of the options as shown in above screen capture. This will display a Border and Shading dialog box. This dialog box can be used to set borders and shading around a selected table.
Step (2): Click Border tab which will display a list of border settings, styles and options whether this border should be applied to the table or text or paragraph.
Step (3): You can use Preview section to disable or enable left, right , top or bottom borders of the selected table or row or column. Follow the given instruction in preview section itself to design the border you like.
Step (4): You can customize your border by setting its color, width by using different width thickness available under style section.

Add Shades To Table:

Following are the similar steps to add shades on a selected table or its rows or columns.
Step (1): Select a row or column where you want to apply shade of your choice.
Step (2): Click the Border Button to display a list of options to put a border. Select Border and Shading option available at the bottom of list of the options. This will display a Border and Shading dialog box. This dialog box can be used to set borders and shading around selected row(s) or column(s).
Step (3): Click Shading tab which will display options to select fill, color and style and whether this border should be applied to cell or table or selected text.
Step (4): You can use Preview section to have an idea about the expected result. Once you are done, click OK button to apply the result.