Research tool in word

Catching Spelling Mistakes

Figure 4-1. When Word spots an iffy spelling, a wavy red line appears beneath the
suspect word. To find out what the correct spelling may be, right-click
the word and choose a correction from the menu.

1. Click File→Options (Alt, F,
   I).

   The Word Options dialog box opens.

2. Select Proofing.

   Options related to spell checking are in the “When
   correcting spelling and grammar in Word” section.

3. Turn off the “Check spelling as you type”
   checkbox, and then click OK.

   Those wavy red lines appear no more in your documents.

Tip

You can hide those wavy red lines as you work on a document and then
turn them back on when you’re ready to see which words need fixing. To
hide the marking of spelling mistakes, go Backstage by clicking
File→ptions (Alt, F, I); in the Word Options dialog box, select
Proofing. In the “Exceptions for” section, choose the current
document or All New Documents and then turn on the checkbox labeled
“Hide spelling errors in this document only”; click OK. Now Word keeps
track of spelling problems as you type, but doesn’t point them out to
you.

When you’re ready to see the document’s spelling mistakes, head
Backstage to the Word Options Proofing page again, turn off the “Hide
spelling errors…” checkbox, and then click OK. The wavy red lines
are back—you can see your spelling errors without having to run a
word-by-word spelling check.

Sometimes you get the spelling right but the meaning wrong. For
example, “their,” “there,” and “they’re” are all correct spellings, but
those words are not interchangeable; each has its own meaning. For
example, you can’t write

There going to check into they’re room once they get
their.

or

Their going to check into there room once they get
they’re.

The sentence makes sense only when you put the right spelling in the
right place:

They’re going to check into their room once they get
there.

Word’s contextual spelling feature sniffs out
problems that regular spell checking doesn’t catch. It works
just like spell checking. When you type a
word that might not fit the context in which it appears, Word throws a
wavy blue line under it. To see Word’s proposed suggestion, right-click
the questioned word.

Contextual spelling isn’t perfect. It does miss some mistakes. But if
it catches even some of the errors that would otherwise sneak into your
document, that’s a good thing.

If you’d rather check your document’s spelling all at once than on the
fly, here’s how:

Word’s Grammar Checker

Tip

Not sure why Word flagged the selection as a possible error? Click
About This Sentence to open a dialog
box that explains the suspected error, along with easy-to-understand
examples of right and wrong usage.

Figure 4-3. When Word’s grammar checker finds a potential mistake, right-click
the flagged word or phrase to open a shortcut menu that helps you
correct the problem. Click the suggested fix to insert it in your
document. Click About This Sentence for an explanation of why Word
flagged it.

• Ignore Once. Click this button to
  skip over this one instance and move on, while still applying the
  grammatical rule that flagged this instance.

• Ignore Rule. Maybe you’re writing a
  novel or play, for example, and don’t care if your document has
  sentence fragments, because people often use them in speech. If
  there’s a grammatical rule you don’t want Word to apply, click this
  button to skip all potential violations of the rule.

• Change. When Word suggests a fix,
  apply it to your document by clicking this button. If Word
  identifies a problem but can’t say how to fix it in this case,
  you’ll see something like “Fragment (consider revising)” in the
  Suggestions box. To fix the problem, click the flagged sentence in
  the Spelling and Grammar dialog box and make your changes there.
  Then click Change to insert your changed text into the
  document.

• Next Sentence. Click this button to
  leave this sentence as is and check the next sentence for
  errors.

Figure 4-4. When you run a grammar check, Word offers a correction or, as here,
identifies the potential problem.

Tip

If you’re not sure why the highlighted text might be a problem, click
Explain to open a dialog box and get a
mini–grammar lesson.

Undoing an AutoCorrect Change

Figure 4-5. Use the AutoCorrect Options button to undo corrections that you don’t
want. Click Control AutoCorrect Options to open the AutoCorrect dialog
box (page 123).

Setting AutoCorrect Options

• Show AutoCorrect Options buttons.
  If you don’t want the AutoCorrect Options button (Figure 4-5) to appear
  when you hover the pointer over an autocorrected word, then turn on
  this checkbox.

• Correct TWo INitial CApitals. If
  you tend to type faster than you can let up on the Shift key, this
  is a helpful correction. But you can turn it off by unchecking the
  box.

• Capitalize first letter of
  sentences. Basically, this tells Word to make sure that
  a capital letter always follows a period, question mark, or
  exclamation point.

  Tip

  If there are cases where you want two
  initial caps or a lowercase letter after a period, click the
  Exceptions button and tell Word what your special case is. (The
  next section tells you more about creating AutoCorrect
  exceptions.)

• Capitalize first letter of table
  cells. This setting helps you format tables
  consistently.

• Capitalize names of days. This
  setting does what it says, properly capitalizing the names of the
  days of the week.

• Correct accidental usage of cAPS LOCK
  key. When you’ve got Caps Lock on, it turns normal
  capitalization backwards: Caps Lock makes all the letters you type
  capital letters (unless you hit the Shift key, which makes letters
  lowercase). When you hit the Caps Lock key by mistake, it makes your
  writing look like you’re shouting. This AutoCorrect
  option fixes the problem and turns off Caps Lock. (If you
  want to shout, you can always hit the Caps
  Lock key again.)

• Replace text as you type. Turning
  off this checkbox suspends AutoCorrect.
  If it’s off and you want to correct a misspelled word, for example,
  you have to use the spelling checker or a good old-fashioned sharp
  eye. With this checkbox on, you can add new corrections to
  AutoCorrect (as explained later in this section).

• Automatically use suggestions from the
  spelling checker. This option uses Word’s dictionary to
  correct common spelling errors automatically. (If you turn it off,
  Word autocorrects only those spellings that are in its AutoCorrect
  list.)

Figure 4-6. Word comes with all these AutoCorrect options turned on, but you can
pick and choose the ones you want. For any of these options you don’t
want Word to correct automatically, turn off the checkbox. Add custom
corrections in the “Replace text as you type” section—put the
typo you want corrected in the Replace text box and its correction in
the With text box.

AutoCorrect
makes you a better typist, fixing typos as they happen. Sometimes,
though, you might want AutoCorrect to be a little less vigilant. You
might want Word to catch the problem when you type two initial caps
accidentally, for example, but wish it would make an exception for
frequently used abbreviations, like “RAs” for research
associates—it gets a little old having to undo the autocorrection
to “Ras” every single time you type RAs.

You can tell Word to make specific exceptions to the things it
corrects automatically. Here’s how:

You can tell Word to automatically correct any of your habitual typos
that aren’t covered by its dictionary or AutoCorrect list, such as a
name you find difficult to spell. Simply open the AutoCorrect dialog box
to the AutoCorrect tab (Figure 4-6): Select
File→ptions (Alt, F, I), select Proofing, and then click
AutoCorrect Options. If necessary, click the AutoCorrect tab.

In the dialog box, make sure the “Replace text as you type” checkbox
is turned on. Then type the misspelling in the Replace text box and the
correct spelling in the With text box. Click Add to add this correction
to the AutoCorrect
list.

If AutoCorrect insists on making a correction you
don’t want, you can delete that correction from
the AutoCorrect list. Open the AutoCorrect dialog box and find the
correction in the AutoCorrect list. Corrections start with punctuation
marks and symbols, followed by words in alphabetical order. Use the
scroll arrows to find the correction you want to banish. Select it, and
then click the Delete button.

AutoFormatting in Word

• Replace as you type. This section
  contains the following
  replacements:

  • “Straight quotes” with “smart
    quotes.” Instead of quotation marks that look
    like two small vertical lines, this option inserts curly
    quotation marks that curve toward the word they precede or
    follow.

  • Fractions (1/2) with fraction
    character (1/2). Type a common fraction as a
    number, followed by a slash, followed by another number, and
    Word inserts a single-character fraction instead.

  • *Bold* and _italic_ with real
    formatting. If you surround some text with
    asterisks, Word changes the text to boldface. Putting
    underline characters before and after text makes it italic.
    (This option is normally turned off, so turn on the checkbox
    if you want to activate it.)

  • Internet and network paths with
    hyperlinks.
    With this option on, whenever you type a web address (like
    www.google.com), Word inserts a hyperlink to
    that address into the text. So a reader who’s connected to
    the Internet can Ctrl-click the link to open the web page.
    And if you publish the document as a blog post or web page,
    its links are already live.

  • Ordinals (1st) with
    superscript. If you’d
    rather write “1st” than “1st,” then leave this checkbox
    turned on to add superscript formatting to the
    letters.

  • Hyphens (—) with dash
    (—). Back in the
    days of typewriters, two hyphens did the same job as a dash,
    and a typesetter would convert the hyphens into a dash as
    part of the publication process. Word plays typesetter for
    you, automatically
    converting two hyphens in a row into a single dash.

• Apply as you type. This section
  lists autoformatting
  that lets you create lists, horizontal lines, and tables by simply
  typing, without hitting buttons on the ribbon:

  • Automatic bulleted
    lists. This
    option creates a bulleted list whenever you begin a new line
    by typing an asterisk (*), hyphen (-), or closing angle
    bracket (>) followed by a space or a tab.

    Tip

    If you create a bulleted list using this method, press
    Enter twice to end the list.

  • Border lines. When this option is
    active, you can draw a specific style of horizontal line by
    going to a new line and typing three of the following
    characters one right after another and then pressing
    Enter:

    Tildes (~) create a wavy line.

    Pound signs (#) create a triple line: a bold center line
    with thin lines above and below it.

    Asterisks (*) create a dashed line.

    Hyphens (-) create a thin line (but be careful that two
    consecutive hyphens don’t autoformat
    into a dash).

    Underscores (_) create a bold line.

    Equal signs (=) create a double line.

  • Built-in Heading
    styles. This option
    automatically
    formats a paragraph of five or fewer words as a heading when
    you take one of these actions:

    For Heading 1, type a new line.

    For Heading 2, precede the new line with a single
    tab.

    For Heading 3, precede the new line with two tabs.

    Whichever level of heading you want, be sure that the line
    does not end with any mark of punctuation, and then press
    Enter twice to apply the heading style.

  • Automatic numbered
    lists. This
    option automatically formats your text as a numbered list
    when you start a new line by typing 1 followed by a period
    or a tab. Press Enter twice to end the list.

    

    Figure 4-7. These are the standard settings for AutoFormat As You
    Type. Turn any checkbox off or on to make your
    AutoFormat settings the way you want them.

    Tip

    Not everyone likes having Word decide
    they’re typing a list whenever they begin a line with
    the number 1. If you don’t want
    autoformatted
    numbered lists, here’s how to tell Word to knock it off:
    Select File→Options (Alt, F, I) and then select
    Proofing→AutoCorrect Options. This opens the
    AutoCorrect dialog box. Click the AutoFormat
    As You Type tab and, in the “Apply as you type” section,
    turn off the “Automatic numbered lists” checkbox. Click
    OK, and Word no longer autoformats these
    lists.

  • Tables. This option lets
    you create a table by using a rather
    cumbersome combination of plus signs (+) and hyphens (-). If
    you use it, begin and end each column with a plus sign and
    use hyphens to indicate column width. For example, typing
    +———+—-+———+—-+ and
    then pressing Enter would create a one-line table of four
    columns, with the first and third columns twice the width of
    the second and fourth columns. (Watch out for consecutive
    hyphens that get autoformatted into dashes.) To create a new
    row, place the cursor just after the row you want to insert
    the new row beneath, and then press Enter.

• Automatically as you type. This
  section controls these miscellaneous formatting changes:

  • Format beginning of list item like
    the one before it. If you apply formatting to
    the beginning of a list, such as boldfacing an introductory
    word or phrase (like this list does), Word keeps track of
    that formatting up to the first punctuation mark and applies
    it to the list items that follow.

  • Set left- and first-indent with tabs
    and backspaces. This option is off
    by default. If you turn it on, you can indent a paragraph by
    placing the cursor at the beginning of the paragraph’s first
    line and pressing the Tab key. To indent an entire
    paragraph, place the cursor at the beginning of any line in
    the paragraph except the first line, and press the Tab key.
    To undo either kind of indentation, press the Backspace
    key.

  • Define styles based on your
    formatting. This options applies one of Word’s
    built-in styles (Formatting Power with Styles) to text you’ve
    formatted manually when your text has the same formatting as
    that built-in style.

Looking Up a Word in the Dictionary

Figure 4-8. Word’s Research pane puts an entire library of reference information
at your fingertips. Use the drop-down list beneath the “Search for” box
to select the research tool you want (here, Word’s thesaurus is
displaying a list of synonyms).

Using the Thesaurus

Tip

Here’s another route to open the Thesaurus in the Research pane:
Select the word you want and then choose Review→Thesaurus (Alt,
R, E).

Getting Information about a Subject

Note

The Search pane offers a couple of options besides Bing for
researching a topic: Factiva iWorks and HighBeam Research. Both of these are
subscription sites that show you a preview of an article—but you
can read the whole thing only if you pay to subscribe.

Tip

If trying to read the article previews in the Search pane gives you a
headache, scroll down to find the “View all results on Live Search”
link. Click it to open a window that shows the results in your web
browser.

Translating Text

Word’s Mini Translator gives you a quick translation. When you point
to a word or select a phrase, the translation appears in a transparent
box that floats over your text. Move the mouse pointer toward the box to
make it solid (and easier to read), as shown in Figure 4-9.

Here’s how to set up Word’s Mini Translator:

You probably don’t need the Mini Translator turned on for every
document you work with. To turn it off, select
Review→Translate→Mini Translator (Alt, R, L, M). This
sequence toggles the Mini Translator off and on, so when you require the
Mini Translator’s services again, repeat the same clicks or keystrokes,
and it’s back.

If you don’t like having the Mini Translator always hovering over your
text, you can use the Research pane (Figure 4-8) to get a quick
translation of a word or phrase. Select the phrase you want to
translate, and then follow these steps:

If you need to translate more than just a word or phrase, you can tell
Word to translate an entire document. Doing so requires two main steps:
choosing the languages you’re working with and then sending the document
over the Internet to the translation site. So before you translate a
document, make sure you’re connected to the Internet. Next choose your
From and To languages:

After you’ve selected the languages you want, here’s how you tell Word
to translate a document: